Spider
by Arkaidy
Summary: I woke up. My arm hurt like hell, and I didn't know why. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was the smell. Sandalwood. The third was the young man with the long black hair and the red eyes.
1. Awake

Title: Spider, Part One: "Awake"  
  
Author: Vega  
  
Fandom: Inu Yasha  
  
Pairing: None Yet  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Archive: ff.net, History's Mirror  
  
Feedback: arkaidy@hotmail.com  
  
Status: Incomplete  
  
Sequel/Series: None  
  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and concepts are property of Rumiko Takahashi and no infringement is intended. All intellectual material that does not fall under this category belongs to me.  
  
Websites: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/arkaidy  
  
Warnings: Smut ahead, possibly, and lots of angst.  
  
Notes: None yet.   
  
~~~  
  
I woke up.  
  
My arm hurt like hell, and I didn't know why.  
  
That was the first thing I noticed. The second was the smell. I could smell... incense? Sandalwood, I recognized the sandalwood, but whatever it was mixed with was hard to define. Earthy scents. Florals. Natural perfumes.  
  
It made the air heavy. Made me want to close my eyes again and sleep for a hundred years. I could see the white spirals drifting through the air is a fog.   
  
My eyelids slipped down and I slept.  
  
The floor was hard. 


	2. Babblefish

Title: Spider, Part Two: "Babblefish"  
  
Author: Vega  
  
Fandom: Inu Yasha (Literally, "Dog-Boy Yasha")  
  
Pairing: None Yet  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Archive: ff.net, History's Mirror  
  
Feedback: arkaidy@hotmail.com  
  
Status: Incomplete  
  
Sequel/Series: None  
  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and concepts are property of Rumiko Takahashi and no infringement is intended. All intellectual material that does not fall under this category belongs to me.  
  
Websites: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/arkaidy  
  
Warnings: Smut ahead, possibly, and lots of angst.  
  
Notes: Please forgive the horrid choppy Japanese. If someone could find me a translator that allows me to put in full phrases and spits out romanji and not kanji translations I would be eternally grateful. Thanks to Arcane for the ones that are right.  
  
~~~  
  
When I awoke again the air felt lighter, the scent less cloying. I struggled to lift my eyelids. I raised my right arm to rub the sleep out of my eyes and yelped - it hurt. Then I remembered that it had hurt before too.  
  
There was the sound of feet on... on what? Wooden floor. Yes, socked feet on wooden floor.  
  
I turned my head slightly, lowering my arm. My head was resting on a sort of stiff padded block. It was making the back of my skull throb. I could see the sock feet as they entered the room from a papery door.  
  
Then I could see knees as someone bent down beside me, knees clad in elaborate cream-coloured material. Then an olive-skinned hand as it raised from the floor and pressed to my forehead. I closed my eyes.  
  
"Kanojo wa me gachi teiru..." a voice close to me called.  
  
"Samasu? Wagakimi!" said another, out in the hall. I didn't understand the language. Had I hit my head hard on something?  
  
"Daijabou-ka? Onna?" the nearest voice said and I think I managed to blink before the incense and the pain pushed me back into the welcome depths of unconsciousness.  
  
~~~  
  
Translation:   
  
Kanojo wa me gachi teiru: "She is awake"  
  
Samasu: "Awake"  
  
Wagakimi: "My lord/ master"  
  
Daijabou-ka: "Are you well?"  
  
Onna: woman 


	3. Kagewaki

Title: Spider, Part Three: "Kagewaki"  
  
Author: Vega  
  
Fandom: Inu Yasha  
  
Pairing: None Yet  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Archive: ff.net, History's Mirror  
  
Feedback: arkaidy@hotmail.com  
  
Status: Incomplete  
  
Sequel/Series: None  
  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and concepts are property of Rumiko Takahashi and no infringement is intended. All intellectual material that does not fall under this category belongs to me.  
  
Websites: http://www.angelfire.com/realm/arkaidy  
  
Warnings: Smut ahead, possibly, and lots of angst.  
  
Notes: None yet. As this is Inu Yasha I'll try to explain as much as I can for those not familiar with the series.  
  
~~~  
  
"Yusuriokosu!" I heard a voice hiss, and I wish to god I knew what it meant.  
  
This was the third time I had awoken, and the second hearing people muttering in strange languages. Oddly enough, it was the first time I didn't smell the incense.  
  
Blinking several times I again tried to raise my right arm to rub my eyes and was again painfully reminded that it hurt like the blazes. I heard more yelling as I moved, more calls of "wagakimi" and "samasu", and using my left arm, pushed myself up into a sitting position.  
  
I felt heavy cloth crumple into my lap and upon a quick inspection realized that the heavy blue fabric was an untied robe of some sort. Twisting my neck painfully, hearing it snap and crack from disuse, the muscles unknotting, I saw that I was in a small room.   
  
The floors were indeed hardwood, as were the ceilings. The room I would have guessed measured at roughly thirty by thirty feet, and to my right appeared to open onto some sort of wooden walkway or porch. The walls at my head and feet were made of wood panellign as well, that warm honey coloured wood of the tropics, but the walls blocking the porch to my right and the hallway to my left seemed to be made of a this, almost opaque substance.  
  
Glass?  
  
No, too thin.  
  
Paper?  
  
I blinked, rubbed my eyes with my left hand, and looked again. Yes. It looked like the walls were made out of fragile white paper held in tiny wooden frames.  
  
Then I looked down at my right arm.  
  
It was bandaged from shoulder to knuckles in cloth strips, which were spotted with blood.  
  
Holy Shit, what had happened to me?  
  
Experimentally I flexed my fist and heard the thick crackling of dried skin separating. Fresh blood spots welled up on the bandages. It hurt like a bitch, so I stopped. I carefully pried back one of the bandages and was immediately assaulted with the sickening scent of fried flesh.  
  
I had been burned!  
  
I quickly tamped the bandage back down, noting as some sort of sticky white substance (I was hoping an ointment and not pus or anything else gross) leaked out the side to soak the bandage's edges.  
  
I looked away and prayed that it wasn't as bad as it seemed to be.   
  
Why did I hurt all over? They felt like... old bruises.  
  
And where the hell was I?  
  
All the people had vanished, if there had been people around at all, and not my fuzzy head making things up. The "bed" I now sat on was nothing more than a thin stuffed mattress, laid out on the floor, the "pillow" a padded wooden block. And my "blankets", as I've noted, were an unfolded robe of some sort.  
  
Beside this bed were small pots of substances I couldn't identify but hoped were medicines, a bowl of what appeared to be water, and a cloth. Also, in the far lefthand corner was a brazier of some sort - that is where the heady sandalwood smell must have originated.  
  
The light was natural, as far as I could tell, for I saw no lamps or candles. Only the daylight through the paper walls - which seemed to be telling me it was around mid-afternoon.  
  
The silence had just begun to get uncomfortable when I hear the tamp tamp of socked feet on wooden floors. I looked to my left to watch as a silhouette moved from the hallway, along the paper wall, and to the door.   
  
From what I could tell, it was a man in ballooning pants with long wavy hair.  
  
He stoped in front of the door, several other men with shorter hair and top-knots kneeling behind him, and bent his head.  
  
"Onna?" he called, and the sound of his voice sent a small thrill through me. It was one of those deep, strong, yet strangely lyrical ones... mellifluous, yes, that was the word. "Onna?" he repeated, and I took a stab in the dark and guessed that he was trying to talk to me.  
  
"Er... yes?" I called back and there was a small murmur of conversation from the other side of the paper wall.  
  
"Onna?" the man said again.  
  
"Yes," I repeated. "I... don't understand you."  
  
Again conversation, and I clearly caught the words "Ningen, gaijen, onna". What the Hell were they saying about me? And where WAS I? More important, how on Earth did I get here?  
  
I cast my mind back but... no... I remember falling asleep. Where? In my bed. At home. And then waking up here - in pain.  
  
Apparently not satisfied with my answer, the man with the mellifluous voice slowly slid back the door, took a step in, then closed it again behind him. The other men remained kneeling on the floor.  
  
I gasped slightly at the sight of him. His hair was indeed long and wavy, reaching almost to the backs of his knees, the top half of which was tied up in a bun a the back of his head. His clothing was stiff and formal looking, dyed a deep indigo, with long trailing sleeves.  
  
His skin was a caramel colour, smooth and almost pore-less. But his eyes - they seemed to be brown but when they flicked over me, assessing me as I was him, I caught a flash of red under the blue-shaded lids.  
  
I looked down at myself, wondering what it was that he saw, and realized that the rest of my body was not bandaged but indeed bruised... and half-nude. With another little gasp I snatched up the robe that covered me with my good hand and dragged it up to cover my torso.  
  
The man smiled slightly and politely turned his head away as I struggled my good arm into the sleeve. I was about to start on the bandaged one when he came over and gently helped me slip into that one as well. I smiled at him, hoping that conveyed my thanks enough.  
  
He knelt beside me, carefully arranging the folds of his strange attire. When this was done he reached across the pallet and tied a yellow sash around the pale blue robe I wore, closing it snugly. Then he produced a similar sash of yellow from the inside of his over-shirt and used it as a make-shift sling for my aching arm.  
  
"Onna-dono," he finally said, "Daijabu?"  
  
I shook my head slowly, trying to communicate to him that I did not understand.  
  
He sighed and tried again. "Dai-ja-bou?" he said slowly, and this time pantomimed an injured arm. Then he pointed at my arm, then cradled his again. Then he lifted it and moved it around as if it didn't hurt. "Daijabou?"  
  
It took me a moment, but I realized that he was asking about my arm, and wether it still was painful.  
  
"It hurts," I said slowly, "it aches."  
  
His eyebrows came together in an obviously puzzled expression.   
  
"Pain?" I tired. Nothing. "Um... Ouch! Ow!" I contorted my face to convey agony and clenched my good fist.  
  
"Ah!" he exclaimed, and his face lit up, "Itai!"   
  
He said "itai" with the same expression and emphasis as I'd said "ouch", so there was one clear word, at least. He then pointed to the red spotting the bandages. "Chi."  
  
"Blood," I answered. Yes, I was bleeding slightly. It made me wonder how bad the burns were.  
  
He nodded again and called out to someone in the hall. An older man, slightly stooped, entered with a cloth sack of things and knelt on the other side of me. He bowed to the younger man, forehead touching the floor and said. "Hai, waka-sama?"  
  
I looked to the young man, who only nodded and gestured to my arm. I figured that he must, for some reason, command a lot of respect in this household. The old man undid his bundle of things to reveal some more jars of potent smelling ointments and fresh bandages and the like.  
  
"Ah!" I said, and pointed to him. "Doctor!"  
  
The old man was slightly startled, and I quickly said "sorry" and didn't interrupt him. I closed my eyes and looked away as he began to peel away the bandages. The smell of the burnt flesh and the prick of the cold air on the wounds was enough to let me know that I was very badly hurt.  
  
The young man took my good hand in his and I looked up into his face - he was looking at me with an expression of sympathy. He gestured with his head for me to look at my other arm, and slowly, fearfully, I did.  
  
It was disgusting.  
  
It was charred black in a semi-circular pattern just above the elbow, and from the looks of the puncture wounds, I had been bitten. I had to fight back a retch. The rest of the arm was an angry red and blistering slightly, less burnt the further from the punctures it got. There, near my wrists and shoulders, I could feel the skin, but further in I felt nothing.  
  
Had my nerve endings been destroyed?  
  
My god, it looked like whatever had bitten me had just BREATHED and I'd been burned because of it.  
  
I started to quake and the young man noticed. He took my chin in his hands and turned my face away from my arm and to his, so our eyes met. Mine must have been sparkling with tears.  
  
The doctor quickly and efficiently spread a gooey substance that cooled and soothed over my wounds and re-bound the burns with fresh linen. When he was finally gone and young man gently placed my arm back in the sling, despite how much it hurt, and returned to kneeling artfully by my side.  
  
"Daijabou?" he said again, and I nodded slowly, brushing the tears off of my cheeks.  
  
"Watashi wa Kagewaki," he said, and pointed at his chest. I frowned. "Kagewaki," he said again, pointing again.  
  
"Kagewaki?" I repeated, unsure.   
  
"Kagewaki." This time he pointed at his head. Oh! This was his name!  
  
"Kagewaki! That's your name!" I said and he nodded, not understanding my words but my tone of discovery. I pointed to my own chest. "I'm ..." I paused, trailing off. What WAS my name?  
  
Now that was strange.  
  
"I'm..." I tried again and again stopped. I shook my head. My name had to be in there somewhere. "I'm... Aislin." I finally said. Something told me that this was A name, but not necessarily mine. It was good enough until I got my wits back enough to remember.  
  
"Aishrinu?" he repeated, his accent massacring the last syllable. I nodded. 'Ashrinu' was good enough. It wasn't my real name, anyway. I knew it meant something important, I just couldn't remember what.  
  
I think he was about to say more when another man entered the room and knelt and bowed by the door. "Wagakimi-sama," he said succinctly.  
  
"Hai?'  
  
He jerked his head towards the porch on the far side of the room. "Taiyjia no Youkai."  
  
"Ah," Kagewaki said softly and climbed to his feet. He said a lot of other things in rapid succession, things I didn't catch, but I got the impression that he was giving orders.  
  
"Hai, domou arigatou," the man said and left.  
  
The words twinged something in my brain, but I didn't know what it was. There was something familiar about the last phrase that the other man had uttered.  
  
Kagewaki leaned down to look at me and with a clear gesture indicating eating said, "Gohan?"  
  
I nodded, "Yes, please."   
  
I was very hungry.  
  
He nodded and walked out of the room with the same soft tamp tamp tamp of his socked feet on the hardwood floors. I watched his shadow go, wondering where he was off to.  
  
A few minutes later a very large bowl of rice with a strange broth-like soup was brought in for me and a plain-looking young woman with her black hair tucked up under a kerchief helped me eat without meeting my eyes.  
  
I took this time to study and synthesise all I saw around me - black hair and eyes, caramel skin, robes for clothing, rice and seafood-tasting soups, and a strange language that was not a Latin-derivative.  
  
Wondering how I had been so out of it from the pain and disorientation to not get it right away, I realized....  
  
... somehow, I had ended up in Japan.  
  
~~~  
  
Translations:  
  
-sama: honourific used in addressing a person of a higher class, or a polite way of addressing strangers.  
  
Ningen: "Human"  
  
Gaijen: "Outsider/ Foreigner"  
  
Itai: "Ouch"  
  
Chi: "Blood"  
  
Hai: "Yes"  
  
Waka: "Young Lord"  
  
Watashi: "I"  
  
Watahi wa Kagewaki: "My name is Kagewaki"  
  
Taiyjia no Youkai: "Exterminators of Demons"  
  
domou arigatou: "Thank you very much"  
  
Gohan: "Meal", (Lit. Rice dish) 


	4. Sango

Spider, Part Four "Sango"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
There were strange sounds outside that scared me. I could not understand all that was being said, of course, but I could hear the grunts, the clang of metal on metal, the thunk of arrows in flesh.  
  
I closed my eyes and curled into a ball on the pallet and wished it would all go away.  
  
It sounded like there was a war outside. I heard screaming. I heard laughing.  
  
The laughter was more unnerving than the screams.  
  
I prayed it would all stop. And where was Kagewaki? I wanted him beside me - he was familiar, he was kind. He was safe.  
  
A final, anguished scream ripped through the air, a woman's voice, wailing. "KOHAKU!" was what she said, and I think it was a name.  
  
And then... silence.  
  
I trembled, wrapping my legs up around my bad arm, my good arm surrounding it, and waited, listening. The silence went on for ever.  
  
And then... tamp tamp tamp. I looked up as the door to my little chamber slid back slowly, and felt an immense wave of relief when Kagewaki was the one who entered. I sat up, a smile pulling on the corners of my lips.   
  
He entered just as graceful and dignified as before, and knelt beside my pallet.   
  
"Are you alright?!" I said immediately, sweeping my eyes over him. There were no wounds that I could see, no scratches, not even patches of dirt or cloth that may have been torn in a scuffle. My earlier assumptions had to have been right, then - to have escaped from that battlefield with no evidence of ever having been there, he must have been a powerful general or leader.  
  
His eyebrows drew down in a expression of confusion and I wracked my brain for a moment before stumbling over the unfamiliar words: "Daijobu?"  
  
His confusion melted into amusement and he nodded his head. "Hai," he said softly, and I understood this to mean "Yes."  
  
I glanced at the wall which lead out onto the porch and he followed my gaze. "Ile," he said, shaking his head -this must mean "no" - "Daijobu."  
  
I sagged with relief and lay back on the thin mattress. He seemed amused by this as well. I wanted to reach up, to touch his hand, to communicate that I was relieved, but as soon as I moved my right arm the whole appendage began screaming.  
  
Waves of hot pain burnt their way up my arm, through my veins, into my heart and head and I cried out. Amusement gone, Kagewaki carefully uncapped some of the clay pots that had lain by my bedside and mixed some dried herbs into the now-empty water bowl.  
  
He called for someone, they conversed briefly at the door, and then hot water in both a fresh bowl and a teapot were brought in. The herbs were set in the pot to steep, and the servant dismissed. Carefully, with his own large hands, Kagewaki unwound my bandages.  
  
This was unusual treatment, I knew. I was being tended to by the Lord of the House himself. Carefully, seemingly unrepelled by my withered and scorched flesh, he cleansed first the puncture wounds and then my whole arm, finger-tips to neck, with the hot water, then re-applied the ointment.  
  
Handing me a cup to the brewed tea from the pot, he then settled beside me, crossed his legs, which I had never seen him do before, and slowly, gently, wrapped my arm in new linen. Once or twice I tried to catch his umber eyes, but they remained focussed on the task.  
  
Once finished, he settled back, shifting a few bum-spaces away to lean against the wooden support beam of the outside wall. He pulled one knee up under his chin and raised his hand in a sort of "drink up" gesture. I had been waiting for the tea to cool.  
  
Hoping that it was some sort of painkiller, I took my time sipping on the tepid liquid. "Thank you," I said softly between mouthfuls and Kagewaki, who had turned his head to look at the silhouette of the porch-beams through the paper-wall turned back to look at me.  
  
"Thank you," I said again, adding, "Arigatou."  
  
"Ah," he smiled, "Doitashimashite." I assumed he was saying 'you're welcome'.  
  
As I finished the cup of tea, my eyelids began to grow heavy again, and I lay back down. Sighing with the joy of the painkiller begining to permiate my being, I hardly noticed when Kagewaki came forward and freed my arm from the sling, balled up the fabric, and put it under my head for a pillow.  
  
He got up and I heard his footfalls as he moved towards the braizer in the far left corner.  
  
Then I smelt the sandalwood.  
  
And then I fell asleep.  
  
~~~  
  
"Where are you from?" a deep voice asked me, and in that strange dream-logic way I knew that he was not speaking English. But again, in that dream-way, I never thought to question why I could understand him then.  
  
"Far away," I answered, "Far far away."  
  
"What is your purpose here?" the voice asked again, and it sent thrills up my spine.  
  
"I'm lost."  
  
"What are you?"  
  
"...lost..."  
  
Frustration began to taint the rich tone of the speaker. "Are you human? Or demon?"  
  
"...human."  
  
"What is the name of the place you come from?"  
  
"I... don't know..."  
  
"How did you arrive here?"  
  
"I... don't know..."  
  
In my dream a shadowy figure cut across the moon, and all I could catch was a flash of moonlight on a silver cloak.  
  
Then I rolled over, the dream forgotten the moment it ended.  
  
I did not smell sandalwood when I awoke.  
  
~~~  
  
The next morning I awoke to find Kagewaki already awake and sitting on the porch outside of my room , the paper walls that separated this chamber from the outside slid back. Beside him was a small tray of food, half-eaten.  
  
He was staring with amazement at something and I sat up slowly to see what it was. Over his shoulder I watched with horror as a young girl, perhaps my age, with long dark hair crawl across the ground.  
  
She was wearing punctured and torn armour of a style I did not recognize, and as she hauled herself forward on her elbows and stomach, her face was twisted in a determined grimace. She was leaving a trail of blood in her wake.  
  
Kagewaki immediately stood, and with his frame blocking the door, I could no longer see the girl.  
  
My god, had she been in the fight the night before?  
  
"Sango," I heard Kagewaki say, and could not make out the rest of his sentence. But the tone in it was evident - he was expressing surprise.  
  
~~~   
  
I was, of course, too ill to leave my room, but from the sounds I could tell that this warrior-girl had been tucked into the chamber beside mine. There was much moaning and wailing, and I figured she must be in a lot of pain.  
  
The day had hardly past before I heard her and Kagewaki and someone else whose voice originated from the garden beyond the porch conversing, and then this girl was back in her armour and gone.  
  
The last thing I heard her spitting was "Inu Yasha! Shine!"  
  
~~~  
  
Later that evening Kagewaki came to share a meal with me, and I desperately wished that I had the language skills to ask him what the Hell had been going on around me. I felt so lost, so alone and isolated.  
  
More than that, I had begun to get scared, for I had that afternoon realized that not only was I in Japan, but that I must, somehow, be in a very rural area of the country, for I saw no form of technology anywhere.  
  
The most technologically advanced gadget I could see was the medicinal ointment that the doctor came and went with once every few hours. I had begun to hope that I was just in a very traditional household.  
  
When we had finished out meal, the trays were taken away and Kagewaki knelt once more beside my pallet.  
  
Reaching into the front of his shirt, which he had pointed to and said 'haori', he produced a small bundle of cloth. From the small triangle of white fabric, Kagewaki produced a small shimmering object. I looked closely and saw that it was a glittering magenta fragment of crystal. The edges looked sharp.  
  
He held it delicately by a pin attached to the narrowest part of the crystal shard and it took me a moment to realize that this was an earring. He held it forward, and the meaning behind the gesture was obvious. He wanted me to wear it.  
  
Carefully, and with his help as my arm still hurt too much to move and the fingers of my right hand were still numb, he helped me replace my old earring in my left ear with the shimmering piece of jewellery.  
  
When he sat back, he looked pleased.  
  
I wondered what the significance of the gesture had been... I hoped I hadn't just married him without knowing it.  
  
"Kirie..." he said softly.  
  
"It's beautiful," I said, and had the feeling we were saying the same thing. "Arigatou."  
  
He just nodded and smiled.  
  
~~~  
  
When I slept again I smelled sandalwood and dreamed of falling through the air.  
  
I hit the ground, hard. I was in a ... a room of some sort? I didn't know.  
  
Beside me there was a faint pinkish glow, the same colour of my new earring. I wanted to reach out, pick up whatever was glowing. I lifted my right arm and something... pain! Sharp jagged things drove into my flesh and I screamed as I felt my skin begin to scald.  
  
Then I heard a deep voice chuckling. There was a bright light and I lifted my left hand to cover my eyes, but it was too late. The brightness was blinding. Darkness descended in spots and dancing stars and I realized I lay on the cold earth.  
  
And then I woke up.  
  
~~~  
  
I sat bolt upright on the pallet, ramrod straight, panting.  
  
What a strange dream. Closing my eyes I lay back down, willing the shivering aftermath of the adrenalin surge to fade. 


	5. Translator

Spider, Part Five: "Translator"  
  
by Vega  
  
Author's Note: The name Mariu has been changed to Ashrinu, for reasons of not wanting to name two of my characters the same thing (which I realized I had done later). Feel free to re-read chapter three. Thought I'd warn you so you didn't think Kagewaki was calling her something new.  
  
~~~  
  
Things started to come back to me in bits and pieces after that nightmare. When I awoke the next morning I could remember the sensation of being bitten, but not the face of the creature who had done it. I could remember it's salivating jaws locked onto my arm - remember the panicked thought that it was trying to bite my arm clean off, that it was trying to eat me.  
  
I screamed and the creature shook it's head. I was whipped back and forth like a sick rag doll. That's where the bruising had come from. I felt my limbs flailing bonelessly, stomach-turning snaps and thunks. Worse than that, it's droll splashed all the way up and down my arm, a noxious smelling green mucus that burned as it flowed.  
  
I screamed again, the sound ripping from my throat.  
  
Then the low voice spoke and I turned my head towards the sound. Tears streaming from my eyes I reached out my left hand to the figure in the doorway. I could not see the details of his costume, as he was back-lit by a blazing fire. But he came into the centre of the room, and the magenta glow from the floor beside me cast heightened shadows on his face.  
  
"Help me!" I cried, and he turned to look at me. Red eyes glinted from the deep shadows.  
  
He raised his hand and there was an intense flash of white light. I was blinded. I felt myself drop to the floor. Slowly, my vision came back. The monster that had had me in it's jaws was decimated - as were the others that had been in the room.  
  
The man - if I could call this strange mound of dark fur a man - held the source of the glowing in his hand, and I could see the planes and shadows of his face. His face was a skull.  
  
A screamed again, and the blissful waves of darkness crashed over me, and I was unconscious.  
  
~~~  
  
When Kagewaki came in the next morning and sat on my porch, I felt well enough to crawl over and sit beside him. He smiled when I did so and re-adjusted the folds of my plain kimono for me, as I had worked one of the shoulders loose in the moving and with my injury, was unable to fix it myself.  
  
He re-tied the sling for me, and tenderly lifted my arm into the triangle of cloth.  
  
"Arigatou," I said and he smiled gently.  
  
"You are welcome."  
  
I nodded and looked out over the garden, watching as the light began to dance in shafts between the leaves. In this household, people rose and slept with the sun, so it must have been around seven or eight in the morning. I had yet to see any evidence that this place had electricity.  
  
Tea and a thin broth-like soup which floating flecks of white was brought to us, and though I secretly longed for orange juice and bacon, I ate up. This time I was able to balance the polished soup bowl in my good hand alone. I didn't actually see Kagewaki consume any of the meal, but when I looked over at him, his bowl was empty and he was nursing a cup of fragrant tea.  
  
I wanted to ask him about my dream, ask if he knew who the man in the death's head mask was. Had he saved me? Had he brought me here to Kagewaki? Would he know how I had gotten here at all?  
  
"I wish you could understand me," I sighed and picked up my own cup of tea. I had always been preferable to Earl Grey, and this smelled like Green or Jasmine, but tea was tea so I drank.  
  
"It would make things easier," Kagewaki agreed, sipping from his own cup.  
  
"Definitely!"  
  
There was a pause, and then I turned to look at him. My eyes were wide and I dropped the cup onto the polished wood beneath me, my left hand flying up to cover my mouth, to block my gasp of terror.  
  
I could UNDERSTAND him!  
  
He looked at me as well, although his shock was far more mild and far better contained. "So it did work," he muttered, and reached out. I flinched back a bit but all he did was tap my new earring and set it dancing. I reached up and closed my hand around it.  
  
"W-what worked? How is this possible?"  
  
"A man gave me that jewel shard," he said, " and told me that if you were to wear in on your ear that you would hear me speak in your language." He pushed back a thick lock of his own hair to reveal the matched pair of to my earring hanging delicately from his own lobe, "And, if I were to wear one myself, I would hear your words in mine."  
  
"Holy Hell," I said softly, and his eyes narrowed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to swear," I said quickly and looked away - had I offended him?  
  
"Do not ... I am not upset," he said slowly and I looked back up to meet his richly coloured eyes. "I was startled. How do you know the man's name?"  
  
"His name?"  
  
"The man who gave me this, his name is... is the second word you used."  
  
"Hell," I repeated.  
  
"Yes..." he paused for a moment and leaned forward and deftly pulled out my earring, said, "Naraku," then replaced it.  
  
"Naraku," I echoed. "Hell."  
  
He nodded.  
  
I found myself nervous and wary of this miraculous gift I wore. Could anything good come from a man whose name literally meant Hell? And these things were... obviously. .. HAD to be either extremely technologically advanced, far superior to anything I had ever heard about or read about before, and therefore too valuable to just give away as a gift... or... or it was magic.  
  
...magic...  
  
I swallowed uncomfortably and Kagewaki noticed.  
  
"What is wrong?" he asked, setting down his tea cup, then pushing aside the whole tray. He leaned forward and removed my cup from good hand, set it aside as well, and enveloped my hand in his.  
  
"I don't... I don't understand how this can possibly be working..." I said, and felt the tears of panic pressing against the back of my eyes. I forced them back..  
  
"It is a gift-spell from my Lord Naraku," Kagewaki answered, sounding as if I should already understand this.  
  
"Spell?" I repeated, aghast. "Magic?"  
  
"Yes, magic. Of course."  
  
I wrenched my hand from his and turned away, confused. I didn't want him to see me crying. The tears fell and I didn't know why any more than I could stop them. My brain felt like it was about to explode.  
  
"Naraku brought you to me," Kagewaki said, scooting forward to rest his hands soothingly on my back, "when you were badly hurt. He asked me to care for you. He told me that you had appeared from thin air in the middle of a battle. He said that you may be a... a miko."  
  
"A miko?" I sniffled, wondering why that particular word had not been translated. The meaning, I suppose, was too complex to have an English equivalent.  
  
"A priestess," he corrected himself, noticing my confusion, "with great spiritual powers. A warrior woman."  
  
I shook my head. "I'm not that."  
  
He was silent for a long moment.  
  
"Then how did you come to be in that place? In the middle of the battle? Surrounded by demons?"  
  
"Demons?" I turned back around to look at him.  
  
He nodded and pulled a small patch of cloth from the inside of his haori and dabbed my wet cheeks. "So, you are not a miko?"  
  
"I'm not a... a miko. I'm just..." I paused, trying to REMEMBER. Why could I remember nothing before that hellish nightmare of being torn apart by that... that THING? No, I couldn't possibly have amnesia, could I? The tears threatened to well up again but I screwed my eyes shut and waited them out. When I looked up again, Kagewaki was waiting, patiently.  
  
"Don't push yourself, Ashrinu," he said softly. "Your memories will return with time."  
  
I nodded, feeling queasy.  
  
"Perhaps the fresh air has been too much for you," he said gently and helped lead me back to my little bed. "Rest."  
  
I said nothing, knowing I was trembling, knowing my face must have been a deathly white shade, my lips a shivering knife-slice.  
  
I felt Kagewaki's warm hands around my good one again and looked up to meet his eyes. The roan shade was startling in it's intensity and I could see red fire flickering in their depths. This scared me and I looked away.  
  
He stopped me by cupping my chin in one of his hands and brought my gaze back to meet his. "Do not look away from me," he said softly. "I want to look at your eyes. Your strange pale eyes. Why are your eyes the colour of the skies? No human could possibly have eyes like yours."  
  
"I'm human," I whispered. I wondered if he had been able to hear me.  
  
And then, suddenly, without warning, he was kissing me.  
  
I was too surprised to say or do anything, and by the time my brain sent the message to my hands to push him away, he was up and on the far side of the room, facing the brazier, his back to me.  
  
"Forgive me," he said, his voice as calm and deep as ever. "I should not take advantage of you in your weakened state. You must sleep now."  
  
"I'm not tired," I protested, "I just woke up. Why did you do tha..."  
  
Before I could finish my sentence I smelled the sandalwood and was unconscious.  
  
~~~  
  
"Are you a miko?" I heard the deep dream-voice ask, and I was back in that strange, shapeless void of light and shadows. I looked around frantically, but I could not see the speaker.  
  
"No!" I cried.  
  
"Are you a demon?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Your eyes say you are of demon heritage."  
  
"I'm human!" Who was I trying to convince?  
  
"How did you get here?"  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"How is it that you appeared in the Demon Exterminator's Village?"  
  
"I don't know! Is that where I was?"  
  
"Why did you appear?"  
  
"I don't know!" I said again, "I don't know anything! Please, what's going on?! Where are you?!"  
  
"... where are you from?"  
  
"I don't know – far away. Not Japan. I can't remember!"  
  
The light slowly began to vanish. It was being eaten by the dark. I saw a flash of silver and a death's head mask.  
  
I screamed.  
  
~~~  
  
And then I was awake.  
  
I sat up, shivering, panting, smelling my own fear. I looked around, desperate for consolation. Desperate to know that this had been just a nightmare.  
  
Kagewaki was nowhere to be found.  
  
The light coming through the rice-paper outer door told me that it was late afternoon. How long had I been asleep?  
  
I paused, listening carefully, and could hear his voice in the room next to mine. I crawled over and pressed myself against the wall that separated our rooms, desperate to know what he was saying.  
  
"... killed the puppet," he was saying, the gentle quality stripped entirely from his voice, "and took the Shikon Shard. I will kill that meddling hanyou."  
  
I blinked. There, another word too complex for the earring. The magical earring that – no, I shoved those complicated thoughts from my mind. I couldn't bare to face any sort of truth.  
  
"Yes, My Young Lord," another voice said and I heard the soft rustling of someone getting to their feet and the familiar tamp tamp of Kagewaki walking. Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping I shuffled myself over to the outside wall and tried to pull myself to my feet.  
  
I watched as Kagewaki's silhouette passed bare inches from my face, then did a double take. All though the footsteps were those of Kagewaki, this shadow was... unfamiliar. Undefined, with a long nose.  
  
I shied backwards, a small gasp escaping my lips. What was that... that THING? A demon? I wanted to believe it was a man in a cap, but I had now seen and heard too much to believe the simplicity of that answer.  
  
The shadow's head turned and I felt it's eyes on me. There was a faint red glow on the paper that separated us.  
  
The door to the porch slid back and instead of the monster, I saw that it was Kagewaki. I stumbled over to him, relieved.  
  
"I... I saw...!" I began, my breath hitching, "the shadow! It wasn't you! The nose!"  
  
"You must have seen Naraku," he said, "He was walking beside me. He wears a hat with strange brim. Are you well? You shouldn't be moving around like you are. You shouldn't be able to walk yet. You need to rest."  
  
"I don't want to rest anymore," I said, "I've been having nightmares."  
  
"Nightmares?" He pulled me upright and helped me stumble out onto the porch. My legs were like leaden weights, and I felt like a badly manipulated marionette. He waited until I was settled, my bare feet dangling over the hard-packed dirt of the garden path beside the proch before asking, "What sorts of nightmares?"  
  
"I dream about this," I said, raising my right arm slightly, then settled it back in the sling. The bandages began to itch and I wanted to take them off, but I knew it was too early for that. "And I had a dream about... someone... asking me questions."  
  
Kagewaki's eyes narrowed briefly before resuming their normal concerned expression. "What sorts of questions?"  
  
"He wants to know who I am, and where I'm from. But when I answer him, he doesn't believe me!"  
  
"Are you telling the truth?"  
  
"Of course I am!" I cried out, then clapped my hand over my moth. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't get upset with you, it's not your fault." Kagewaki nodded minutely in acceptance of the apology, then gestured for me to go on. "I don't remember... anything... before waking up here." I admitted. "I may have hurt myself, gotten amnesia, anything, I don't know. I don't even remember being hurt, I just know how it happened from the nightmares. I see this... monster, with huge teeth and it... it... " I touched my arm and hoped that he knew what had happened by the punctures in my flesh so I wouldn't have to say it out loud. "But it doesn't make sense. Things like that don't really exist. Magic doesn't really exist! Demons aren't real!"  
  
There was a moment of silence before Kagewaki leaned over and wrapped me tightly in his arms, pulling me into an intimate embrace. The memory of his kiss, his soft smooth lips on mine, flashed through my head and I felt myself growing redder.  
  
Why on earth was I blushing? It was just one kiss. And he had apologized.  
  
"Demons are real," he said softly, "I've seen enough of them to know this. And I know magic does work, because I can speak to you... and my advice for the dream is, tell the voice whatever he wants, everything you remember. It can only be someone trying to help you."  
  
I nodded slowly, sniffing back more tears that were threatening. But I wasn't' sure I agreed with him - the voice in the dream was trying to help me? I didn't think that was right... it felt more like... like he was trying to demand information... he sounded manipulative...  
  
It was all so confusing!  
  
This ordeal was starting to become overwhelming. I sallowed again, trying to force away the tears and fear. I felt rather than saw a flash over my shoulder and knew instinctively that the red fire in Kagewaki's eyes had flared for just a moment.  
  
That scared me.  
  
And then he was kissing me again and his skin was too warm, too comforting for me to want to let go.   
  
For the few minutes the kiss lasted, all I could feel was complete trust for his strange man who held me, this strange man who believed in magic and demons, this strange man whom, I realized, I knew nothing about.  
  
When we parted there was a strange taste on my tongue, something I couldn't identify. It was bitter and dusty. I licked my lips and felt a lethargy come over me. I wanted to sleep again, which was strange because I knew I was not tired.  
  
And all I could feel, all I could see, all I could smell was Kagewaki.  
  
But that didn't matter. As long as he held me, I felt safe.  
  
And that scared me too, because deep down I knew I should be feeling anything but.  
  
I slept. 


	6. Nightmare

Spider, Part Six, "Nightmare"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
"Get out of my head!" I screamed at the voice.  
  
I couldn't hear it, but somewhere I knew it was chuckling.  
  
"What do you want?!"  
  
"... you know what I want."  
  
"Where are you?!" I felt myself turning in circles, saw the shadows moving as I looked left and right, but I saw no one.  
  
"Inside you." The voice made me shiver, and I think somewhere beyond this realm my physical body doubled up with cold.  
  
I clapped my hands over my ears, marvelling only slightly that my right arm was intact. "Get out of me!"  
  
"Give me what I want."  
  
"NO!"  
  
There was a flash and I felt myself drop to a hard-packed dirt floor. I squeezed my eyes shut against the nightmarishly familiar magenta glow. "No, stop it, please!" I whimpered.  
  
I waited, anticipating the ghastly pain, the feel of sharpness skewering my flesh, the jarring jolt of demonic teeth scraping canyons into my bone, the reeking stench of burning and sizzling flesh, the scouring of my nerves.  
  
When it did not come, I looked up, slowly. The demon was not there.  
  
I was alone in the small hut, the magenta on the floor pulsating. I stood slowly, my left hand wrapped protectively around my upper right arm. I didn't want to look at what was glowing.  
  
A voice chuckled. I turned and saw a figure standing in the doorway. From behind him I could see the tongues of flame that leapt from thatched rooftop to thatched rooftop. People were screaming. I stumbled forward, moving to push past him, to go to the people, to shove the burning children down into the dirt and douse the flames.  
  
From the seamless covering of white fur a sharp-nailed hand sprang up and wrapped around my throat.  
  
"Let me go!" I gurgled, "let me go to them!"  
  
The grip tightened only slightly before I was shoved backwards, back into the centre of the room. I hit the floor with a teeth-jarring jolt. I was dreaming, so nothing was broken, but I still HURT.  
  
"You cannot help them," the voice said, and I recognized it as the one that had been asking me questions. It issued from behind the death's mask that the white fur-thing wore. Was it human? I didn't know.  
  
"Why not?!" I bawled at him, fisting my hands in the dirt.  
  
"Because they are already dead. This has already happened, Miko."  
  
"I'm NOT A MIKO!" I shrieked. I climbed to my feet and swayed only slightly. The change in altitude doubled me over and I coughed violently, my windpipe burning with pain.  
  
"You are not a Miko," the voice repeated. He sounded slightly amused. "You are not a youkai. You are not hanyou. And yet you have the power to make metal move without touching it. You speak an ungodly language. You dress as a man does. And your eyes are the colour of a morning sky."  
  
I shook my head, forcing away the tears that seemed to come so readily lately.  
  
"I am not a demon..." I said softly, and I heard the tremor in my voice. "I am...not... a... a.."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"I'm not," I said firmly.   
  
I felt cold hands on my face and I tried to pull away, but he held me firmly. I collapsed to my knees, looking up at him, my eyes wide. From beneath the mask I saw blazing red. He knelt to study my face.  
  
"Where are you from?"  
  
"I... I don't remember..."  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"I... don't... remember..."  
  
The red behind the mask flared for an instant and I screamed as fire ate it's way through the flesh of my right arm. It was a hundred times more intense, more mind-numbingly painful, than the demon's saliva. I could hear the hiss and pop of the fluids under my skin sizzling.   
  
I retched, and that came out as a scream too.  
  
"You are lying to me," the man snarled. "You are lying to me and I WILL NOT HAVE IT! WHAT ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU COME TO BE HERE!?"  
  
The burning slopped and I slumped forward, into his chest. He made no effort to catch me and I slithered bonelessly down, into his lap, my face in the hollow of his legs. I was shivering. But I would not cry, dammit.   
  
This was just a dream.  
  
"Get up."  
  
I couldn't even so much as twitch. I had no feeling, anywhere. Nothing but the dull aching throb of pain, all over, everywhere, in every cell, in every pore, from the roots of my hair to the backs of my eyes, to the skin underneath my fingernails.  
  
I felt my bottom lip split, the blood oozing from underneath my teeth. It throbbed too, fire under the skin, fire in my blood.  
  
"Get up," he said again, and I heard poison in his voice.  
  
I pressed my tired ands against the floor and pushed. There was a sickening crackling sound as my brunt flesh cracked, peeling and flaking. Icey cold slammed down, all the way through my muscle, and with a quick glace I could see the bone, the ruptured arteries, the muscle in seared chunks.  
  
I turned my head away, to the side, and vomited.  
  
Rough hands twined into my hair and yanked me up to meet the red eyes that lay beneath the skull. With one hand keeping my head up, pulling agonizingly on my hair, the other swooped out to wrap his talons around my right wrist. I still had feeling there and I screamed again.  
  
He yanked my arm up viciously and brought it to his lips. I could see them, his chin, his horrid smirk, under the shadow of the skull's long nose. He opened his mouth and I screwed my eyes shut.  
  
I felt the flesh rip off the bone as he bit into it. I heard the slurping gurgle of him sucking at the fount.  
  
"You have powerful blood," he rasped, and in my minds eye I saw him bathed in it, my life's essence. "You have powerful blood and I will know what that power is. I will HAVE that power."  
  
I opened my heavy lids slowly, staring right into his eyes. "The... the f... the fu..." I stumbled, spitefully fighting the faint I felt coming upon me. "The... the fuck you will."  
  
~~~  
  
I awoke.  
  
The room was pitch dark, and I lay stock still, panting. I could feel the sweat running down my forehead, over my nose. It stung as it hit my eyes.  
  
"Hell," I whispered into the blackness... "Fucking hell...."  
  
~~~  
  
When the sun rose it found me still awake, too terrified to move.   
  
After an hour of watching the feeble daylight bleed into my chamber through the paper wall, I finally mustered my courage enough to look down at my right wrist. Somehow, in the middle of the night, I must have clawed at my bandages, for there was a hanging gap in the shockingly white linen. It was only flecked with the merest hints of red.  
  
A dream, I reminded myself, only a dream.  
  
And then I noticed what pattern the blood spots were in.  
  
A crescent moon.  
  
I had been BITTEN. 


	7. Memory

Spider, Part Seven "Memory"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
Dawn crept in slowly.  
  
Eventually I got sick of staring at my wrist, trying to decipher the puzzle behind my latest injury, and crawled over to the door that led outside. I pushed it back and scooted forward until I was seated on the edge of the porch, one foot dangling above the garden path, one tucked under me, and my back against a supporting pillar.  
  
The garden was enclosed with a low wall, painted a dark slate grey. There were trees of species I did not recognize, flowers in exotic shapes and colours in full bloom, their scents tickling my nose. There were twisting paths that created patters on the ground, low shrubberies, and a koi pond filled with the enormous goldfish-type creatures.  
  
For a while I just watched the light slowly change from a night-dulled lavender to a bleeding red, to tangerine orange, coral, light yellow, and finally the white of a newly-risen sun. The patterns on the leaves and ground shifted subtly and I pursed my lips and enjoyed the fresh breeze on my face.  
  
Then I looked at my wrist.  
  
I still lacked the ability to bend my elbow without outside help, so without Kagewaki there to slip my arm into it's sling, I remained stiff-jointed. I also slept with my bandaged arm outside of my kimono, so it was slipping precariously around the torso as I sat. A few quick tugs and shifts and I thought I had it closed.  
  
The bandages that had been protecting the burns on my wrist had been... cut away it looked like. The edges weren't frayed enough for it to have been me tearing it, or anyone else for that matter. Inside of the cut-away parts was a small set of newly-forming bruises, in that familiar crescent shape of a jaw and teeth - and two tiny punctures right were the biter's canines would have been.  
  
Why had I been bitten? And what had bitten me? The marks were to big to be an animal, a pet of some sort, too small to be that demon again... I shuddered momentarily as the full force of the nightmare slammed back into my conscious.  
  
The man in the death's head mask. He had bitten me, right there.  
  
I screwed my eyes shut and leaned my head back and tried to calm my breathing.   
  
It had been a NIGHTMARE. It had NOT BEEN real. I had probably felt some mouse or something bite me in the middle of the night, attracted by the scent of the ointment, and translated that into my dreamscape. It happened.  
  
I looked at the wound again.  
  
Except this was too big to be a mouse.  
  
I clutched my wrist with the other hand, ignoring the pain, and ground my teeth together to prevent me from crying out.  
  
What the HELL was happening to me?!  
  
I was so confused. Where was I? Why was I here? How did I get here in the first place?  
  
As I thought these questions the dream-voice rose in my mind, asking the same.  
  
"Where are you from?" he had said. And my answer had been:  
  
"I... I don't remember..."  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"I... don't... remember..."  
  
And I had screamed something else. "I AM NOT A MIKO!"  
  
"You are not a Miko," the voice had repeated. He had sounded slightly amused. "You are not a youkai. You are not hanyou. And yet you have the power to make metal move without touching it. You speak an ungodly language. You dress as a man does. And your eyes are the colour of a morning sky."  
  
I chewed on these words. Miko... I was not a warrior priestess. Youkai. I didn't know what that I was. Hanyou. I had heard Kagewaki say it, but I didn't know it's meaning either.   
  
The power to make metal move? I hadn't done that. Dress as a man? I looked down at myself. What had I been wearing when I had first come here? Ungoldy language... well, I spoke English, not Japanese. Except now that I had this earring... again my thoughts shied away from contemplation of magic.  
  
This was just too surreal.  
  
And my eyes are the colour of a morning sky. I wonder what that meant. I suddenly wished for a looking glass. Were my eyes blue? I didn't remember.  
  
I hadn't lied to the voice. I didn't know who I was. Where I was. Why I was. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to move past the trauma of the night I was injured, trying to reach back further, to a darkened bedroom, my soft bed with a real pillow... The aching throb of fire beneath my skin blocked my way. The pain was like a wall in my mind that I couldn't get past.  
  
I opened my eyes once more and leaned back against the pillar and stared at the finely-hewn wooden beams that made up the overhanging roof above my head. I would NOT cry.  
  
Several moments passed before I heard the door to my room slide open and Kagewaki's voice calling softly, "Ashrinu? Have you awakened?"  
  
"Out here," I replied and flicked my eyes over to him. He was dressed in a simple white kimono today, and not his customary indigo.  
  
His own eyes momentarily widened before he stepped gracefully out onto the porch and sat cross legged beside me. "You certainly are stronger than I have given you credit for," he said softly after a moment of not-quite-tense silence.  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"Most people in your position would still be bed ridden. You have managed to throw off much of the mag– weakness."  
  
I lowered my head and narrowed my eyes at him. His returning smile was innocent.  
  
"Let me kiss you again," he said softly, unfolding himself and leaning towards me.  
  
I jerked my head back and turned my face to the side. "Why?"   
  
He blinked and paused. Then he lifted my good hand to his face, pressing light kisses to my fingertips. "You are beautiful," he said, and his voice was heart-achingly sincere. I tried to resist the lure of the reactions this raised in me, and was only partially successful. There was something about Kagewaki that made me want to surrender to him when he was nearby. "From the first moment I saw you I knew you were different. You were something more. I want you."  
  
I pulled my hand out of his grip harshly, and I think it shocked him. "I am NOT different," I spat. "I am NOT a Miko. I am NOT a hanyou or a youkai, whatever they are."  
  
He tried to touch my cheek and again I jerked my head to the side, out of reach. "But your eyes..." he began, his tone becoming slightly pleading.  
  
"What ABOUT my eyes? I can't SEE my eyes!"  
  
He stared at me a moment, then called out to a servant. I didn't catch all he said, he spoke so rapidly, but the man returned with two small bundles and set them down beside Kagewaki. He sat back in the lotus position, this time facing me, his knees almost touching mine.  
  
Unsure wether or not I should be comfortable with his proximity, I instead turned my attention to the first square of folded cloth. As Kagewaki slipped the knot and folded back the smooth fabric I saw... myself.  
  
With a gasp of shock I reached out and he allowed me to take the mirror in my hand.  
  
My face... that is what I looked like? My cheekbones were high, delicate, my skin fair compared to those around me. My hair was light and reddish, matted and dirty, oily from the grime of my injury and days gone without a bath.   
  
But my eyes... they were blue. The bluest blue I'd ever seen. An ethereal glowing blue that could not have possibly been natural. My iris was shot through with white flares of lightning, and the rims were a midnight colour. The pupils were strangest of all, however, slender and almost beast-like in their narrowness.  
  
My god... what WAS I?  
  
Trembling, I dropped the mirror. It landed with a dull thunk on the polished wooden floor and Kagewaki let it lie.  
  
"What... what...?" I said, and could hear the tremor in my voice.  
  
He reached up to cradle my cheek in his hand once more and this time I let him. His voice was like hot cinnamon. "My guess is that, somewhere, in your lineage, is youkai blood. From the fineness of your features, I'd say a taiyoukai."   
  
"Youkai?" I repeated, knowing the earring still wasn't translating properly.  
  
The corner of Kagewaki's lip curled slightly. "Youkai is... a monster. Like the one that attacked you... a demon."  
  
"A... a demon?"  
  
"Yes. But not all are..." he paused a moment, as if searching for the right word. "Villains. Some are very human-like." I couldn't tell from the inflection of the word 'human' wether or not this was a desired trait. I hoped it was. "A taiyoukai," he continued, obviously anticipating my next question, "Is a youkai ruler. A prince, a king."  
  
"Taiyoukai..." I breathed. The word... the concept... was vaguely familiar... why?  
  
"Do you understand?"   
  
I shook my head. Oh, I understood, but I didn't want to believe it.  
  
"I think you do understand what I am saying." Kagewaki leaned close again, and again that heat spread through my body, my confusion drowning in waves of trust. I tried to fight them off. They felt unnatural. But I couldn't. I wanted Kagewaki to kiss me.  
  
I opened my lips slightly, my breathing becoming heavier. He was pressing his face close to mine. I felt his nose brush past mine and then... my eyes fell on the other bundle at his feet.  
  
"What's that?" I pointed to it, and he broke away and sat backwards, annoyance flashing briefly over his features before being replaced by indulgence.  
  
"These are your garments," he said, picking up this bundle of fabric as well. He untied the silk that covered them and handed me the rough remains of what had been my shirt - vitriol or something had eaten clean through the right arm and most of the torso. The rest looked like it had been spattered with battery acid, holes and punctures splashing over the fabric.  
  
The jeans were in better shape. Only the waistband on the right-hand side had been eaten away, though the legs sported the same acidic holes as the shirt. My doc martins were next, heavy soled shoes... or at least, they had been. I must had stepped in a pulled of the monster's saliva.  
  
Shuddering, forcing back the urge to vomit, I shoved the clothes back at him. If this is what that thing had done to my clothing, it was a wonder my right arm still existed at all. From the pile of silk that had hidden them a melted lump of metal slipped out to land beside the mirror.   
  
I plucked it up from the porch with my good hand and turned it over. It was my watch! I had forgotten entirely that it was even missing - that it even existed! I looked at my ruined wrist, and once more forced my gorge down.  
  
Inspecting the face, I saw that the second hand was still ticking away merrily beneath the half-melted glass, bent in such a way that it was able to sneak under the damage and keep going as it passed.  
  
"The metal moves of it's own volition," Kagewaki said, an unknowing imitation of the dream-voice's accusation. I looked up to find him staring at the watch face as well. "What sort of magic makes it revolve, and for what purpose?"  
  
I knew then that my worst suspicions were true. No longer could I tell myself that I was simply in rural Japan... somehow, someway, I was in ANCIENT rural Japan. EVERYbody knew what a watch was, even those who chose not to use electricity.  
  
I set the watch down carefully on the mirror. "It's mechanics," I said, and was only mildly shocked to hear my voice crackling. "Springs and wires and the like, it makes the metal bar move like that - tic-tic-tic, once every second."  
  
"Second?"  
  
"It's called a watch. It's used to tell time. It's ... like a portable hourglass."  
  
"Fascinating," Kagewaki admitted and picked it up to study it more closely. "So it is not magic?"  
  
"No," I said.  
  
He held the lump of melted metal and glass back to me. "What does it mean, when the bars are positioned like that?"  
  
I studied them, trying to see around the lumps of browned and bubbled glass. "It means it was three-forty. About... four hours after midnight."  
  
He nodded, as if confirming the time I said as the one he knew it was. I wondered at the strange reaction. Perhaps it was around then that this Naraku brought me to him?  
  
Naraku.  
  
I looked back at my wrist, as the small crescent moon punctures. Kagewaki followed my gaze. Unflinchingly he said, "Oh, your bandages have come away." He made no mention of the new wound.  
  
His lack of reaction set off all sorts of warning alarms in my head. I wanted to say something, to ask him if he knew how they came to be there, but he was suddenly kissing me again, and I could taste the tea that he'd had this morning, the warmth of his skin... and a slight coppery tang that I couldn't identify.  
  
Then he pulled back and, looking into my eyes, said, "Forget about your wrist. I believe you are well enough to bathe today - would you like that?"  
  
I nodded. A bath would be nice.  
  
I looked at my wrist again, and tried to remember if there was something important I was supposed to connect with the blood spots on the bandage. I couldn't. Kagewaki scooped me up in his arms and walked through the garden towards a small house on the far side, near a part of his house that I was unfamiliar with.  
  
I had never been this far from my room, and it was an eye-opener to see how very large this place was. This wasn't a house - it was a palace. He followed my wide-eyed gaze with a chuckle. "It is big, yes. My father was the Lord of this region. I inherited it after he passed away."  
  
"I'm sorry," I said softly. I rubbed my cheek into his smooth chest, which was bared slightly by the gap in his soft white kimono. "I would have liked to have met him."  
  
Kagewaki looked down into my face. "He thought you were very lovely."  
  
I blinked. The confusion must have been evident on my face.  
  
"My father was here to receive you when Naraku brought you to us. He was killed that night, however, by a spider youkai."  
  
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I said again. "I had no idea."  
  
Kagewaki's smile weakened minutely. "You were asleep. Do not trouble yourself over it."  
  
I said nothing more until we reached the small hut. He called into the house as he set me down on the steps that lead into it, and the same young woman as before scrambled to light a fire underneath the building in a stone cairn.  
  
Kagewaki helped me into the room above the oven and I saw that it was divided between a bench and floorspace and a large wooden tub of water. The water was faintly green in colour, scented with something floral, and I could see the wisps of steam rising from the water as it began to heat up.  
  
He helped me onto the bench, then with a quick smile, exited.  
  
The young lady entered to help me undress and climb into the basin, but then left. I wondered if I was to be left alone when Kagewaki walked back in. I yipped and tried to hide against the side of the tub, but it was awkward because my bandaged right arm dangled out the side.  
  
"Do not be ashamed," he said softly, "I do not intend on taking advantage of you. The doctor has been called away to attend other matters and I am the only one in the household who knows how to properly care for your wounds. Please."  
  
He knelt beside the tub and turned his attention to the bandages, pulling them off slowly and gently. His gentle rhythmic touch, his presence, and the hot water were all soothing, and I felt my eyelids drooping shut. I hadn't slept very well at all in the past few days, and it was starting to take it's toll on me.  
  
"Why don't you sleep?" I heard him say, but his voice sounded distant.  
  
"I don't... wanna..." I sighed, even as I cradled my head on my good arm, which I had been resting on the polished rim of the basin. "... nightmares..."  
  
"There will be no nightmare today," he said gently, and I could feel the wet scrape of the soft cloth he was dabbing against my overly-sensitised burns. "I promise."  
  
I didn't have time to decide wether or not I believed him before I drifted off to sleep.  
  
~~~  
  
I was dreaming again.  
  
I could feel the warm water around me, strong hands cradling my head, keeping it above it. But that was distant. That was far away.  
  
I was standing by the doorway. I was wearing new patent leather shoes. I hated them. They had bows on the toe and I hated bows. They had been a gift from my great grandmother, the lady with the bright red hair that she kept it two buns on the top of her head to hide... to hide what? I didn't know, she had never shown me.  
  
My great-grandmother had always worn the buns in her red hair – it had never occurred to me that it was strange that my great-grandmother looked the same age as my mother's sisters.  
  
Great-grandmother was standing in the kitchen with mother, and I was spying.  
  
They were having an argument, although over what I did not know. I could hear them shouting, but I didn't understand all the words. They were shouting in that strange language great-grandmother spoke, the one I didn't know much of.  
  
My mother had trouble following it too, and great-grandmother switched into halting, heavily accented English.  
  
"Why do you not come and visit us more often!" great-grandmother was saying. "The others want to see her. We barely know our own decedent."  
  
"She's not one of you!" my mother was shouting back. "She's a human!"  
  
Great-grandmother shook her head. "Her father was a great man. He was also one of us. You loved him, didn't you? Can't you indulge his side of the family, out of respect for his memory? Can't you visit us in Japan every once and a while?"  
  
"No! I don't want my daughter to have anything to do with you creatures!"  
  
"Your husband was a 'creature'. Why use such harsh words for those of us with less human blood than him?"  
  
My mother was crying, and I wanted to go ask her why, but I also didn't want to see great-grandmother. Mother said that she was... a freak.  
  
"My daughter is human," my mother insisted around sobs.  
  
"She has her ancestor's eyes," great-grandmother said softly, "the eyes of canine youkai."  
  
"No!" my mother screamed, and I heard the crash of something breaking. "Get out of my house! GET OUT!"  
  
I ran up to my room, crying myself, scared. I hid under my bed. I heard the downstairs door slam and great-grandma's car pulling away from the curb. The phone rang and I heard mother answer it, striving to sound normal.  
  
The next day mother and I went to stay in a hotel. We stayed there for three months. When we finally went back home, our house had moved to somewhere very far away - we had to drive for two days straight to get there.   
  
And we never saw great-grandmother again.  
  
Eventually, the memory faded from my mind, and as I grew up, I forgot about my great-grandmother entirely.  
  
And I wore violet-tinted sunglasses to school.  
  
~~~  
  
When I awakened, I was bundled up in a blanket and propped against the trunk of a rather large tree. I looked around and found Kagewaki leaning against the tree beside me, slowly reading a scroll as he unfurled it.  
  
It was early afternoon, judging by the type of light that was diffused by the leaves above us.  
  
I sat up slightly, mildly shocked at my new surroundings.  
  
"Oh, awake are you?" he turned his eyes to me, setting aside the scroll. Before it rolled closed on itself I tried to read the writing - it looked like it had been scratched out by a twig, rough and runic looking. Not at all like the scripted kanji that I had seen as tattoos and on commercials back home.  
  
Back home...  
  
"I... yes."  
  
"Did you have a nightmare? Was that voice back?"  
  
I shook my head and felt the wet ends of my hair slapping gently against my cheeks and neck. It disturbed me briefly that he had washed my hair as I slept, even though I was grateful. Dirty hair smells and I was beginning to need a shampoo.  
  
"See?" he said "Did I not promise?"  
  
"You did," I admitted. "Thank you."  
  
And that worried me. He had told me there would be no nightmares and there wasn't. How is it that nightmares... the voice... obeyed this young, rustic, Feudal Lord? Or was it just the suggestion that I wouldn't that made me not allow them?  
  
"You deserved a good sleep."  
  
I looked at him - he had already picked up his scroll and was reading it again. "I did."  
  
"Did you have a pleasant dream?"  
  
"... I did."  
  
"And was it a good memory?"  
  
I was about to answer, and then paused. How had he known it was a memory? I hadn't said that. Carefully, lest he notice his slip, I said, "more or less yes. It was."  
  
"Ah. And do you remember where you came from now?"  
  
When I shook my head a second time, I was not entirely lying. "No - not completely."  
  
He looked up at me, his roan eyes narrowing. "I see. Well," he gave a small sigh and went back to his reading, "I'm sure it will come to you with time."  
  
"Yes," I agreed. "I'm sure it will." 


	8. Curiouser

Spider, Part Eight "Curious"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
I spent the rest of the dying afternoon sitting beside Kagewaki in silence, contemplating.  
  
Once he turned to me and held out the chicken-scratch scroll and asked if perhaps I understood what was written. I said I did not, and he nodded to himself as if he had expected as much, and said nothing further to me.  
  
I huddled down in the blanket as best I could, knowing that underneath it all I wore was a thin cotton kimono that was probably half see-through. My light reddish hair was drying, frizzing up slightly, as if it had a sort of mind of it's own, creating thick waves around my face and ears.  
  
I took a lock of it between my fingers and studied the colour, the texture... so like the great-grandmother in my dream. The soft russet colour of a fox kit, or a rusting nail. I let go and the hair sprung gently back into place. It was a relief to have it clean.  
  
Then I looked up at the glowing blue sky with my matching eyes and thought.  
  
The moving metal bar... that had been my watch. But how had the voice in my dreams known? The bite on my wrist... had someone done that for real? The smell of the sandalwood, the will-sapping kisses of the handsome young lord beside me...  
  
I turned to look at Kagewaki. His hair was still tied up in that half top-knot, still long and black as ink. His caramel skin was smooth and taught over lovely shaped cheekbones, and wrinkled only slightly in the corners of his eyes and mouth when he smiled. His teeth were white and straight and perfect - something that struck me as odd if I really was far enough into the past to... I shied away from that thought.  
  
And his eyes... his eyes were that strange roan colour, fire dancing in their depths. Darker than but close enough to the colour of the death's head mask's eyes to lurch my sense of reality for a shocking moment.  
  
Kagewaki must have felt my gaze on him because he carefully set aside the scroll, then turned his body to me, hands folded in his lap.  
  
"Yes? Is there something you wanted to talk about?" he prompted, and I bet my bottom lip. "Your dream perhaps?"  
  
"Sort of," I admitted. I looked at the wrist of my burnt arm and his gaze followed. The bandages had been left off today to give the burns some air, and the punctures at the slender part of my wrist stood out, livid and purple. "I was bitten."  
  
"Oh dear," he said, looking not half as shocked as I thought he should have been. "So you have."  
  
"I was bitten in my dream, too. In the same spot."  
  
His eyes narrowed. "You remember this?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
He seemed to think for a moment, and then came to a decision. "What else do you remember?"  
  
I chose my words carefully. "There's that voice I told you about. This time I saw the person it comes from. He was dressed all in white. He had a skull mask on."  
  
Kagewaki's eyes narrowed further. I thought briefly that if I said one more thing that seemed odd to him, he'd end up with shut eyes. "Go on."  
  
"He asks me who I am and where I'm from, and I can't answer him."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I don't know!" I waved my good hand in a gesture of annoyance. "All I know is that I woke up in that hut and that THING bit me, and then I woke up here! Anything beyond that is just... the pain just blocks it out."  
  
Kagemwaki seemed to contemplate this. His hair began to collect the red sparks coming of the sun as it started to set, looking for all the world like someone had flicked a handful of blood at his back.  
  
Then he leaned forward again, and before I could escape it, kissed me. Again that wave of pure trust washed over me, and I felt my cheeks flush as this time he deepened the kiss and pressed his tongue into my mouth. "Try to remember," he panted as we separated, and he pressed his forehead against mine. I let my head fall back against the tree as he ran the fingers of one of his hands through my slightly tangled hair, the other slipping down my neck to part the folds of the blanket enough to get at the delightful little hollow where my collar bones slipped together.  
  
"I'm trying," I said, aware of the slight whine in my voice.  
  
"I will take away your pain," Kagewaki breathed onto the skin of my neck and I felt it goosebump deliciously. Part of me, buried deep inside and screaming, told me to shove him away, but it all just felt so GOOD. I could trust him with every part of me - my soul, my heart, my memories, my body... I wanted to love him.  
  
He tongue lathed the small hollow and I gasped again. "Please..."  
  
"Remember," he said again, the words muffled against my throat.  
  
I closed my eyes and bathed in the sensations. My skin was prickling everywhere, like pins and needled just under the surface from head to toe. For a brief moment the throbbing fire that was my right arm ebbed and I could actually feel every eyelash of his that touched me, every minute wrinkle in his lips. I wanted to kiss him back, so I grabbed a great handful of his hair and dragged his head back up to meet mine.  
  
He chuckled and said "Remember," a third time, and suddenly I was speaking. The words poured out of me like an over-enthusiastic fountain and I couldn't make them stop. He was kissing me between breaths and I didn't want to stop.  
  
"I was in the hallway and I heard my mother crying and telling grandmother that I was human and I hated my shoes and I was far away from here and I speak English and I was on the other side of the world and so very far away and a long time from now and I think it must have been three hundred years at least maybe five hundred and I don't think I'm human and I'm so scared--"  
  
I couldn't stop kissing him. I moved my lips downward, ran my tongue along his jaw line, mildly surprised to realize that while the inside of his mouth was hot and sweet tasting, his skin was cold and bitter. I closed my eyes and threw my head back and I could feel him exploring and teasing the newly exposed flesh, his hands wriggling the blanket away and the shoulders of my kimono down. Not to be outdone I attacked his sash with vigour and reached my good hand around under his arm, brushing the warmth of his armpit, and to his back to stroke and claw and tease.  
  
Feeling a strange ridge there, I stopped kissing him and pulled backwards slightly. His eyes were unfocussed with demand when they met mine, looking all the redder.  
  
"What's this?" I asked in a soft voice, feeling breathless, and for good reason. "A scar?"  
  
He nodded quickly and bent his head once more to my throat.  
  
"Wait!" I said, and he pulled away, this time looking slightly annoyed. "From what?"  
  
He sighed and slipped his kimono down all the way, the fabric pooling at his waist, then turned slightly so I could see. It was a scar alright, a burn scar.   
  
"Would you look at that..." I breathed. "I looks like... a spider."  
  
~~~  
  
My discovery pretty much put a stopper on the whole making out thing, which was essentially a good thing, for the moment I was free from his arms clear thinking descended once more.  
  
What was wrong with me? One or two kisses from I man I clearly no longer trusted and I was suddenly willing to...? I shoved that aside and asked Kagewaki where the scar was from.  
  
He told me in very succinct words how in his youth he had been in love with a Miko who had betrayed him and run off with a jewel very precious to his family with a mangey inu-hanyou - a dog half-demon.  
  
He reached out and touched my earring again and explained that somehow the hanyou had shattered the jewel and that I was wearing a shard of it - it's magic helped us to understand each other's words.  
  
I asked how he had discovered this and why he had a shard of it, and he told me that he had hired a very trustworthy man named Naraku - the same one who had rescued me and brought me here - to track down and obtain the other shards.  
  
When he said Naraku's name a cold thrill raced up my spine - there was something about it that made me want to vomit. Something that conjured low voices and silver cloaks.  
  
I was going to say something, ask if the magenta glow on the floor from my nightmares about my injury was more of the shards, ask if I could see this Naraku and place him in my memory, ask about the goddamned sandalwood, but I was interruped.  
  
A young boy in a black unitard and strange shell-like joint and groin guards approached and knelt before Kagewaki until Kagewaki excused himself from our conversation and bid him rise.  
  
"Well, Kohaku?" he asked.  
  
The name seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't place it.  
  
"Sango has been found, My Lord," the boy intoned gravely. I wondered at him - he was so serious, a warrior of sort, judging by the knife at his belt, yet he couldn't have been more than twelve. "She travels with the inu-hanyou and the Miko. A cursed houshin and kitsune-youkai travel with them." Then he spouted off some directions and times and I judged from this that Kagewaki knew where to find them.  
  
"Ah," Kagewaki nodded and rose to his feet. "Very good. I must prepare. Kohaku, will you see my guest back to her chambers?" Then he walked off.  
  
I watched him go, mildly annoyed that after such a passionate intimacy he could just retreat, but he was a ruler of sorts, and did have an obligation to track down the thieves. Without saying a word, Kohaku pulled me to my feet and placed the blanket over my shoulders. Then, with me leaning heavily on him, he walked me back to my room and set me down on the futon.  
  
He turned to go and I reached up and grabbed his belt. "Wait, please." His dark eyes narrowed at me and I swallowed heavily before continuing. "You're Kohaku?" He nodded briefly, sharply. "I heard someone screaming your name a few days ago. What was that?"  
  
He pulled himself away and stared hard into my eyes. "I do not know what you are referring to." And then he left.  
  
I shook my head and stared at my arm.  
  
Curiouser and curiouser. 


	9. Shikon no Tama

Spider, Part Nine "Shikon no Tama"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
That night Kagewaki left the grounds and I did not know where he went. I was served dinner by the servants and no one stayed to talk with me. I was feeling slightly lonely and very confused, but it gave me a lot of time to think.  
  
I know I had heard a woman screaming out Kohaku's name in that battle all those nights ago. Then Sango had left on a mission with Naraku. Naraku had come back, because I had seen his silhouette against the rice-paper screens (or so Kagewaki told me), but Sango had not. I had heard nothing further about that.  
  
Then Kohaku himself shows up, appears to be the warrior of Kohaku, and he's been out looking for Sango. And Sango, apparently, has hooked up with a group of thieves, including the Miko that betrayed Kagewaki's trust and stole his family gem.  
  
Meanwhile, Naraku is still out there, searching for the pieces of the shattered jewel. That of course must be why he ended up rescuing me - the magenta glow on the floor in my dream must have been more pieces of the jewel, and he must have been there to collect them and had found me instead.  
  
But what about the village burning outside of the hut? The women and old and children screaming? The things that were attacking them? Where were the men? The warriors? And why had Naraku (for I felt certain that this Naraku was the man in the silver cloak and skull mask) stopped me in the dream when I had tried to go to them, to help them?  
  
Was it because they were already dead, as he had said, or... was it that he was the one who had attacked him?  
  
And what about that strange dream about my great-grandmother? I hadn't thought about her in years, so why would I dream of that long ago last time I saw her now... here? How did Kagewaki know that I had? Had he really prompted the dream somehow? Is that what the heavy sandalwood smell meant - that he was somehow making me dream specific things?  
  
If that was true, then it would explain why I was dreaming about parts of my own past - somehow either Kagewaki or Naraku was trying to figure out who I was and where I was from. I partially knew myself now: I knew I was from the future, from far away, but the exact dates I couldn't be sure of. I knew that while I had thought myself perfectly human and normal my whole life I possessed the blood fo a taiyoukai - I was the descendant of a Great Demon Lord, if only by a few drops of blue in my veins.  
  
I had always thought that my eyes were just very vibrant, but thinking on the way that Naraku and the monster who'd hurt me eyes both glowed, it made sense to me why mine were so very bright.  
  
Did that explain the flames dancing in the depths of Kagewaki's?  
  
Could he, too, be possessed of some youkai blood? I would have to ask him when he returned from... where ever it was that he had gone. To see this Sango and his betraying Miko...  
  
I wondered if he would come back alive, and was surprised to realize that I don't think I really cared one way or another. Kagewaki was taking care of me, yes, but I was almost strong enough to walk on my own and if need be I could find a healer in a village somewhere – I don't think I trusted Kagewaki anymore.  
  
His kisses did strange things to me, made me trust and want to be with him always, made me want to do whatever he said - made me want to serve him. I hated it.  
  
Yes, I determined - perhaps it would be best if Kagewaki didn't come back. But something in my heart twisted at the thought, and I wanted him just as badly as I had this afternoon under the tree.  
  
Contradictory thoughts such as these tumbled through my brain all night, until sometime around dawn I finally drifted off.  
  
When I slept, it was nightmare and memory free - it felt like the first real dream of my own in weeks.  
  
~~~  
  
The next day I awoke around evening to find the palace deserted. I had called for someone to help me get dressed and no one had answered. I called a few more times and began to get worried so I pulled myself to my feet and painstakingly, exhaustingly, walked down the inside corridor, holding myself up with the wall.  
  
I peered into every room I passed and found them empty, with a thick layer of dust on the floor. That was ver perturbing because I knew for certain that I had seen other people here before - where were they now, and why was there no sign of their presence in halls and room that I had seen them in?  
  
I was half-way to the other wing of the palace when I spotted Kohaku kneeling in a room at the far end of the hall before an open door, his head and hands on the polished wood.  
  
"Kohaku!" I called out, and he sat up quickly and stared at me, as if startled. "Where has everyone gone?"  
  
He turned his face back outside and as I stumbled closer I could hear the low buzz of conversation and realized he was conversing with someone. I saw a strange shadow against the rice paper screen - a mass of fur, it looked like.  
  
"It's the girl," he said, "She's walking around."  
  
"Hm. I didn't think she'd be well enough," said the answering voice and I recognized it immediately - it was the voice from my dreams.  
  
"Sorry to disturb you," I said loudly, not really sorry at all. Whatever it was that they were conspiring had me ill at ease. "But where is Lord Kagewaki? Where's everyone else? I'm afraid I'm very confused."  
  
There was a pause, then the voice said: "Take her to a room nearby, Kohaku. Sango will be here very soon."  
  
Kohaku rose and grabbed me none to gently by the elbow and pulled me into the room beside the one he had been kneeling in. I was pushed down onto a musty futon and told to stay here and quiet by the boy before he turned on his heel and walked out.  
  
I wanted to ask what the Hell was going on, why the voice from my nightmares was giving Kagewaki's warriors orders, but I heard a woman's voice ring out in the courtyard, and I immediately recognized it. It was Sango.  
  
"KOHAKU!"  
  
"First put your Hirarikotsu down," replied the deep male voice. I scooted up to the screen and moved it sideways slowly, just enough that I could peer out.   
  
"Naraku," hissed Sango, and there was a brief moment of silence before a heavy crashing sound in the room above me told me something heavy had landed there. I fought back a scream and readjusted myself - there, I could see the girl pink and green on the wall opposite the gloomy, barren courtyard, flanked by a large white feline of some sort. A youkai, I thought.  
  
She jumped down onto the hard-packed dirt and I was honestly surprised she didn't kill herself in doing so - it was quite the jump for a normal human. Maybe she was of youkai blood as well? Maybe she was a highly trained warrior - it was plausible, for she carried a very battered looking sword.  
  
"Thank you for your trouble, Sango," the white-fur said again, and I angled my body to look at him. Yes, this was the man from my dreams! This was that voice... and Sango had called him Naraku. This was Kagewaki's servant. "Did you bring Inu Yasha's sword as promised?"  
  
"Let me see Kohaku first! Then we'll see if I give you the sword."  
  
I blinked and for a moment tore my gaze away from Sango to the room beside mine... Kohaku was... a hostage? But he seemed so... obedient. The whole situation was giving me the willies and I decided quickly that the moment Kagewaki got back I was thanking him for his hospitality and getting the hell outta here.  
  
I didn't trust this Naraku.  
  
Suddenly the wall that separated the room I was in and the one next to it began to glow red and I back pedalled as far away from the outer wall as I could, terrified. What the HELL was happening?! Then it occurred to me that Sango would be able to see Kohaku's shadow through the paper wall with him back lit like that.  
  
How was it being done, though? There was no electricity, therefore no flood lights - but that's what it looked like. Was this... was it Naraku doing this?  
  
When the light faded again I inched forward to spy once more and heard Sango yell, "Naraku! Turn Kohaku back to normal! Right now!"  
  
So it was Naraku controlling this boy... but how? For what purpose? It left no doubts in my mind, however, that Naraku was the one who had been invading my dreams, that he was some sort of demon himself.  
  
I heard Naraku chuckle slightly as Sango raised the battered sword in his direction.  
  
"It won't do you any good," he smiled, "even if you kill me. I'm sure you're smart enough to have noticed that? This is what comes of the Shikon's curse." Shikon? The word seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't place it. But I didn't like the idea of being around Naraku and a curse. It made my skin goosebump all over. "Those Youkai wanted the Shikon Shards and attacked your village. The death of your father; the reason why Kohaku is trapped between life and death; it is all because of the Shikon's Curse."  
  
"Nonsense! It was you who killed my father and friends!" Sango screamed, and I felt my head reeling. "You killed everyone because you wanted the Shikon's power for yourself!"  
  
A curse? A curse that killed the villagers... the villagers I had watched burn... the Shikon Shards... the slivers of the gem sacred to Kagewaki's family that I had seen glowing magenta on the floor in my nightmare?  
  
Was all this over that strange jewel? The... the Shikon?  
  
"People die for the Shikon's Power..." Naraku was saying, but I found it hard to concentrate on his words. I was getting dizzy. "And people live because of it as well. You shouldn't despise it like that Sango. After all, it is what's keeping Kohaku alive." I wrapped my good hand around the shard hanging from my ear. I wanted to tear it out - but I needed it to understand their words. "Our agreement was to exchange the sword for Kohaku, yes? So what are you going to do?"  
  
"Damn you!" she screamed, and I echoed her sentiments in my head. Yes - damn him, this Naraku. Killing that village like that, holding this boy that Sango so obviously cared about hostage to her will. "What agreement!?"  
  
She leapt into the air, brandishing the blade at the seated from of Naraku and screamed, "Here is my answer!" She lunged, whipping the blade at Naraku, who leapt into the air and managed surprisingly to grasp it by the handle, rather than get hit. A blade sprung up from Sango's forearm, and I could tell that she had concealed it there.  
  
The two weapons clashed together and somehow the two of them managed to land on the roof. I could not see the battle from where I was, but I could here their feet running around above me, her screams of rage and the clang of colliding blades.  
  
I prayed that Sango would be victorious.  
  
There was a slicing sound, and Naraku landed in the courtyard, facing Sango and I. The shredded scraps of his cloak were blown away in the breeze and I gasped.  
  
Beneath the cloak knelt the Young Lord of this palace.  
  
"Kagewaki," I gasped, and I saw his eyes narrow briefly at me, before returning to Sango.  
  
My god!  
  
Kagewaki WAS Naraku!  
  
All this time I thought I had been safe, protected by this man, while he... he was soiling me, kissing me to control me, invading my dreams, murdering entire towns of people, destroying young boys, tricking me, hurting, biting, killing...   
  
I hated him.  
  
I wanted to see him dead.  
  
"You are the Young Lord of this castle!" I heard Sango scream above me, echoing my own thoughts.  
  
"Kagewaki was a good leader," the young man kneeling before us said. "He was the one who ordered the memorial service for your fallen comrades. He was also the one who saved your life... this Kagewaki Hitomi."  
  
Yes, he had, I knew that - it was he who had told the servants (and I knew in an instant that they too had been fakes of some sort, youkai probably) to bind her wounds in the room next to mine.   
  
"You killed him!" Sango screamed, and I knew she was referring to Kohaku.  
  
"But I am this Castle's Lord now," Naraku continued. "Now I am Kagewaki."  
  
"You bastard!" Sango cried and lunged for him, and I sat back against the wall, tears dancing on my cheeks.  
  
So it wasn't Kagewaki. The Kagewaki I had first met... had somehow... I had no doubts that this man had killed him. This MONSTER had killed the kind, gentle Kagewaki who had been watching over me, the one to have kissed me the first time... and taken his body and place.  
  
Somewhere deep inside of me something twisted sharply. Unable to stop myself, I leaned over and vomited.  
  
There were the sounds of heated battle from outside, Sango's scream, shattering metal, a pain filled roar, Naraku's chuckling, but I barely registered it. I was shaking, shivering, unable to budge, unwilling to watch the fight.  
  
I couldn't move.  
  
My mouth was opening and closing, I was gasping for air like a landed fish. The spot inside of me was on fire. Tears pooled under my eyes, flowing freely down my cheeks.  
  
Kagewaki was dead, and Naraku... Naraku had... had... to me...   
  
I shook my head.  
  
Then I looked over at the room Kohaku was in. I could save him, I thought. I could go over ther eand grab his arm and drag him away from her - find the Shikon shard and take it out of him, give his dead body to Sango, help her, do SOMETHING.  
  
But I was too weak and I knew it. I was to sick to stand on my own, let alone fight with a seasoned young warrior like Kohaku. He was trapped. And so was I.  
  
It occurred to me for the first time that I was a prisoner here.  
  
It made me want to scream.  
  
"How about this? Why don't you serve me along with Kohaku?" I heard Naraku say to Sango, and I wanted to charge out there and take off his head with my bare hands for the gall of it. Instead I turned my head back to the gap in the screen, my spy-hole. "Kagewaki told you to come back to the Castle, remember?"  
  
"Stop talking nonsense," she panted in return, and I wanted to applaud her courage. "The only thing I want it to kill you, and avenge my father!"  
  
"Kohaku," Naraku said calmly, "Come here." I felt my stomach drop. He was going to make the boy fight her. I wondered if he would demand such a heartless thing of me next.... if he did, would I be able to resist?  
  
I watched with horror as Kohaku lifted his pick-like weapon above head and murmur, "Farewell, sister."  
  
"Kohaku..." she whispered, and I covered my mouth to prevent a wail from escaping.  
  
Now I understood - Sango wanted Kohaku back because he was her little brother. Thee tears began flowing again and this time I didn't try to force them back.  
  
Sango screamed as Kohaku attacked, and she had no weapon to defend herself. She was getting very bloody, very quickly.   
  
"Kohaku!" she kept crying out, "Snap out of it!"   
  
I heard a creaking sound came from the roof and a large weapon - a huge boomerang of sorts - fell to Sango's feet, glowing the same colour of Naraku's eyes. This must have been the thing that made the loud crashing sound earlier.  
  
Sango reached for it, hesitantly, and I heard Naraku whisper, "That's it, Sango. Kill him. Kill him with your own hands."  
  
Sick fucking bastard!  
  
His eyes were glowing, but his mouth... his mouth wasn't moving... how was it that I was hearing his words? Was it the power of the thing I wore on my ear? "Kill Kohaku," he continued, "have his blood all over you and defile the Shikon shard! Turn it's power to evil!"  
  
I reached up again and wrapped my hand around the shard in my ear - was that why he kept kissing me, trying to seduce me? To defile the Shikon shard?!  
  
"There's no way... no way I can kill you..." Sango said softly, and I was surprised to see that she smiled as she lowered her arm. She turned and started to limp towards her brother, and I had no idea what she was trying to accomplish - Kohaku would kill her for certain.  
  
But, wasn't that a better alternative? Be killed by your brother than to kill him? I clenched my eyes shut, afraid to watch.  
  
I heard her whisper his name, then the wump of her body falling onto the hard-packed dirt. My eyes flew open and I forced myself to look, to see if Kohaku had dealt Sango her final blow. If he had, I would run out there and try to attack Naraku myself. I would probably die, but that would be better than to live on as his... play thing.  
  
"Sister..." Kohaku whispered, and then I was distracted by four others running into the courtyard screaming Sango's name.  
  
Two were young men, one in red, the other in indigo, one a short kid with strawberry hair like my great-grandmother's, and one was a girl in... in a green school uniform?! I looked at her closely - yes! She was dressed in MODERN garb.  
  
Here was someone else like me... someone trapped here, in this strange ancient place. I hoped that she may know how we got here, how we could get home. I wanted to call out, to run to these people, but that meant having to run past Naraku, and I didn't think I could be fast enough, not with my arm and my lingering weakness. Not with his will-sapping kisses, either.  
  
A muted clang caught my attention and I turned my eyes back to Kohaku - he had dropped his weapon and fallen to his knees. The newcomers stopped and stared in awe.  
  
"He made her brother do it?" the man in indigo said, horror in his voice.  
  
"How..." the modern-girl stammered, "How could he..."   
  
Beside her, the man in red began to tremble with rage and I could see that his hair was thick and white, that there were small triangular ears poking out off the top of his head like a dogs - ah! This must be the inu-hanoyu.... which meant the girl in the uniform, clutching a bow and a quiver of arrows, must be the betraying Miko!  
  
"Naraku!" the inu-hanyou called, his voice bubbling with anger, "Where are you!? Come out!"  
  
I looked around, startled, and noticed that Naraku had indeed vanished when none of us had been paying attention. Then I heard his voice, slightly muffled, as if he was hiding behind something:  
  
"A girl who cannot kill her brother, after he killed her father and fellow exterminators... she must love her brother more than her own life." They were admirable words, but the tone was mocking. I heard the tell-tale tamp tamp of footsteps on the hardwood floor beside me and deduced that he had retreated into the room beside mine. "How can she think like that? I don't understand."  
  
Below Sango was looking at the kneeling Kohaku, her head on the modern-miko's knees. Kohaku was slumped, defeated looking, while the indigo-clad man and the inu-hanyou searched frantically for Naraku.  
  
"Inu Yasha!" the other man said, and I recognized his name. Sango had said it right before she had left Kagewaki's castle. "Isn't this the same as what happened to you? Fifty years ago?!"  
  
"What?!" the Inu-hanyou snarled.  
  
"He tried to make Sango hate her brother, to kill him..." the Miko whispered, and all eyes turned to her. "Then the Shard in Kohaku's back would be defiled. It's the same trap as when he made Kikyou and Inu Yasha hate one another! I won't allow this to happen again! Kikyou died because she didn't want to corrupt the Shikon no Tama. And now, Sango refuses to fight her brother. Stupid Naraku! Doesn't he understand? Sango couldn't do that! She cares too much for him..."  
  
As the miko talked, she looked down into Sango's face and I could see there warmth and pity. It made my heart wrench and that firey spot deep inside of me cooled slightly. I eased my grip over my abdomen, and pushed back the door all the way - I wanted them to see me. I took in the breath to call out to them, to tell them that the murdering bastard was on the roof, but before I could a wind kicked up.  
  
It was a vile purple colour, and rose from the ground in a menacing cyclone. The red-haired child picked up the demon feline - who had now shrunk into the size of a house cat, looking very injured itself, gasped and screamed, "It's a Shouki!"  
  
I had no idea what a Shouki was, but I had enough sense to follow the lead of the others and cover my nose and mouth with my sleeve.  
  
Some of the noxious air leaked my way and I pushed myself back from the door and tried not to breathe it in.  
  
"All you little things!" I heard Naraku cry out, "Sink into my sea of Shouki!"  
  
I heard voices from inside the growing, swirling cloud of horrid-smelling Shouki, but could see nothing they were doing. I began to worry for the others, even as the gas began to crawl along the floor towards me like living tentacles. Suddenly the place shook and the walls between me and the room next to me blew apart.  
  
I screamed and ducked, covering my head with my good arm.  
  
"Naraku!" I heard the Miko scream, and the twang of a released bowstring. Light gleamed all around me, seeping under my eyelids and I chanced a peek - Naraku stood there, shock on his face, a glowing arrow protruding from his chest, right below his heart. "You are a real bastard!"  
  
"What is this girl?" Naraku whispered, his voice holding puzzlement and awe - he sounded in pain. "It's purifying all my Shouki and Poisons! This power is Kikyou's!"  
  
"I won't let this be!" the girl screamed again and I managed to turn my head in time to watch her fire another gleaming arrow and the demon beside me before the creeping Shouki caught up to me.  
  
I heard Sango screaming out Kohaku's name.  
  
Darkness fell like a wet blanket and all I felt before I was totally gone was two sharp-nailed hands yank me against a hard body. I prayed that it was Inu Yasha or the other one that held me close, that they had seen me and jumped to my protection, but I ...  
  
...I smelled the Sandalwood.  
  
~~~  
  
I felt the light growing against my eyelids, the warmth travelling slowly up my face, the hard rough texture below my back. It took a few groggy minutes before I realized that I was awake and staring up at the strangely patterned green roof above me.  
  
It took several more to realize that it was not a ceiling above my head, but the leaves and branches of a tree.  
  
I sat up quickly, my head spinning, and had to clutch and the rounded floor beneath me to keep from keeling over. I looked down, over my shoulder, and gasped - floor nothing, I was in a TREE.  
  
I looked around frantically, searching for someone, anyone, but preferably the uniform-clad miko.  
  
Who I found made my stomach sink and twist.  
  
Kagewaki was seated in a branch above me, looking very upset. He heard my little inhalation of terror and turned his fiery eyes to me.  
  
"Did you hear what you wanted last night, eavesdropper?" he hissed, and I recoiled slighlty.  
  
"I... I wasn't..." I stammered, but he leapt down from his branch onto mine and bared his teeth at me. How could I not have noticed before? He had fangs! Fangs in the same place as the punctures in my wrist - it HAD been Naraku that had bitten me!  
  
Before I could do anything his hand lashed out and I was slapped so hard on the cheek that my head turned. Tears rose in my eyes at the implied insult of the strike, rather than the pain.  
  
"You will do as you are told," he said coldly, and I nodded, keeping my eyes on the ground far below us. I didn't dare look back at his face. "Until I learn how you were able to appear in the Exterminator's Village so suddenly, where your taiyoukai blood originates, and why I can sense a Shikon Shard inside of you."  
  
I gasped, my eyes widening - I had... a Shikon Shard INSIDE me?  
  
THAT must be the reason why ... why he had been going through with this elaborate charade. It had all seemed like too much work to just fuck around with my emotions and mind. He wanted that shard – and he wanted it defiled.  
  
I shuddered and he took my chin in his hand and turned me none-too-gently to face him. "Do you understand me, girl?" His red eyes narrowed and I felt the tears slipping down my cheeks. He gave me a rough shake and repeated, "Do you understand!"  
  
My mouth opened and closed a few times, no sound coming out.  
  
He leaned forward and kissed me hotly, and I again his tongue entered my mouth. When he pulled away I could taste the strange dustiness on my lips when he withdrew. A wave of irrational trust ripped through me and I heard myself respond from a distance, "Yes, My Lord."  
  
"Good," he snarled and grabbed me by my good arm, and jumped from the tree. We fell slowly landed more lightly than I would have expected and I didn't even hurt myself. It was terrifying. "Follow me. Kohaku," I turned my head to see the boy standing in the shrubbery beside us, his face and eyes eerily blank, "you too."  
  
And then he began to walk, and I had no choice but to stumble after him, shoving the pain into the back of my mind, and trying to salvage what little hope I had left.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Note:  
  
Hallo everyone!  
  
Just wanted to, at the 'turning of the tide', just give a general shout out adn thankyou to all those who have been following the story faithfully. I am honestly surprised it's gained such a wide audience when it's obviously so shrouded in the Inu Yasha universe that it's hard to even tell that it IS in the universe at all!  
  
For those of you who think the above scenario was familliar, I suggest re-watching episode 30... this is practically a transcription of it (which had me spending HOURS playing-pausing-writing), with some lines changed slightly or compressed to make them sound like good grammer and less like 'Engrish'. I am, of course, using the fan-subbed versions of the episodes as I find the English Kagome annoying and whiney, while Inu Yasha sounds like a whimpering preppie whose daddy took away his car. _  
  
Yes, there is more coming of the story - at least another ten chapters, as I have it planned. There may end up being more, or less, but right now the final chapter is 19 and already written. ^__^  
  
InuyshazFukaiMori - No, Sango is not dead, but our character doesn't know that. Again, please refer to episode 30 of the Anime. Also, "curiouser and curiouser" comes form Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking Glass" -- an appropriate allusion, don't you think? ^_^  
  
Clawed - yes, I know the "intro info" was a little much for each story - I picked up the template from Scribe and liked it a lot, but realized with such purposefully short beginning chapters, they wieghed the action down. The point was to make the chapters coniside with her moments of consciousness.  
  
Sashlea - Thank you! I try! (no if only a movie studio would buy my MOVIES)  
  
Julie - I know the first couple chapters were confusing, I hope it all makes sense to you now!  
  
Raylee - Thank you so much for all your long, thoughtful reviews. It really means a lot to me. Especially knowing that you're all but pouncing on the new chapters as they arrive! I'm so happy you're enjoying it!  
  
Stephanie - I hope I'm updating fast enough for you. ^_^ I'm getting roughly one a day finished, although it's been less lately because of Exams and computer problems. Hopefully those should be fixed soon.  
  
hrfuzzy - Yes, that is something that bothered me with other Mary-Sue Anime stories - most are set in Japan, and most English fans are not very fluent (*laugh*, "Baka" doesn't count!) I wanted to play with that idea.  
  
cyberwolf - I'm glad that you're finding it really intersting. I have to struggle each chapter to try to keep my character out of the 'camera's view' of the main story so it's beleiveable that she could exist there along with everyone else without Inu Yasha et al. knowing. I'm trying to create an alternate universe that changes nothing, and it's rewarding to hear comments like yours.  
  
Kori - I hope everything is clearer now.  
  
Hawkeye - Yay for singed flesh! I protect my right arm now while I'm writing in character - gah, am I an actor or what?  
  
DemonLady1 - *whines* I'm trying! But I HAD To go see Return of the King, you understand! It was a well-deserved break, right?  
  
Bonessasan - what a cool name. I'm glad that the pieces are falling into place now. It was frustrating hearing people say "What has this got to do with Inu Yasha?" while I was building up chapters. I mean, I gave the name Kagewaki right away... anyone wanting to coudl have just looked for that character on an info website and realized it was Naraku in disguise. ^__^  
  
me - I'm glad your friend is enjoying it as well.  
  
distorted-desire - I'm glad that this is a loveable mystery. It's mostly about Naraku, so there's very little about everyone else. I also remembered that you wanted more details of how they looked so I added that in chapters 7 and 8 - hope that's what you wanted. Say, you wouldnt' happen to be an artist wanting to do fanart...  
  
laura - thanks for reading!  
  
Spinereader - I'll try to find that strange word. The text is getting less poetic as I go on on purpose - she's in less of a fog, so the world is becomng more realistic to her.  
  
Sashelea - ... you'll see! For a spoiler - "He can't get at it"  
  
RedHerring - Aren't you Trin? *g* I'm glad that everyone, especially you, is enjoying my detail to her inguries - morbid gruesome lot that you are! I'm happy that you find it usefully original. I like doing original things that are slightly confusing!  
  
Aki Hisu, Nameksei-jinn-Hime - I'm not sure if my Japanese is right or not. Anyone? "namae" looks like an English word, so I'm warry.  
  
Astarte Katz - It's nice to hear that I gave you the shivers!  
  
Pallas Athena - Best for Last! Thank you so much for your encouragement and commentary. I've thought long about a lot of what you've said, and it's been very useful. I appreciate it. Thank you! 


	10. Hunger

Spider  
  
Part Ten, "Hunger"  
  
by Vega  
  
We passed the day in silence.  
  
We were walking for hours - I was too out of breath, trying to just keep up with my prolonged exhaustion, to make conversation. Kohaku seemed incapable of it. And Naraku wasn't in the mood.  
  
We paused very rarely, only when Naraku was forced to stop. He had been hurt very badly in the battle the night before by the Miko-girl's glowing arrow. I don't know exactly what had happened. He had been shot through the heart, I had seen it. Yet somehow he still moved, he still lived.  
  
But when we paused for a rest, me collapsing to the ground, trying to catch my breath, Kohaku kneeling with his head down and eyes closed, and Naraku clinging desperately to a tree to remain upright .   
  
When we took a breather... he would -oh, I don't know how to explain it... flicker.  
  
His body would fade in and out in pieces - an arm once, a leg... it was as if it was pure will alone and nothing else holding him in his physical shape. If that were truly that case, I could believe it. From what I had heard the night before, this shape-stealing Naraku was some sort of taiyoukai himself - a Great Demon Lord... but the evil kind.  
  
It made me wonder - was it even possible for a taiyoukai to BE good? Could this mythical ancestor of mine have been a good person? A worthy and just leader? Or had he or she been a tyrant? Could he have been Naraku himself?  
  
That would explain the luminescent eyes we both had.  
  
The thought made me shudder and I forced it from my head, trying not to think about it at all I was mostly successful until we got where it was we were going.  
  
  
  
It was well after nightfall before we reached our destination - a black and gloomy castle.  
  
Servants met us at the front gate and bore Naraku, who was now just as weak as I, away in a litter. Kohaku walked quietly and blankly behind it and I, exhausted, famished, and trembling with weakness, just fell to the ground and lay there, forcing back tears.  
  
One of the human servants came over to me and looked into my face with such a pitying expression I wondered if he could be under the control of Naraku at all, or if he was just some poor pawn as I was.  
  
The man who picked me up looked human enough, and his skin was warm. But he DID serve Naraku.  
  
I just closed my eyes and prayed that whatever he was going to do to me didn't hurt too much. I wasn't exactly surprised, but was relieved, when all that happened was that I was brought into a small, elegant chamber, so like the last one, tucked into bed, and fed a bowl of thick broth.  
  
When that was gone he brought in tea and sat beside me until that was finished as well. I wondered if this man was a doctor... or a guard that Naraku had sent to watch over me closely. I hadn't done any real damage last night, but I knew far more now than I did before, and I wouldn't put it past Naraku for eliminating me just for knowing.  
  
I decided to avoid conversation and instead turned my face away and lay down on my left side, cradling my throbbing right arm. My arm was still unbandaged and I could feel the wounds drying out painfully, some of the burns splitting to let a few precious drops of blood ooze out when I moved too much. The air was drying out my arm, the wind cutting at the sensitized flesh cruelly.  
  
My simple cotton kimono was already liberally spattered from our walk to the castle and as I ate more blood had welled up and coloured my clothing.  
  
I felt smooth warm hands on my burnt flesh suddenly and turned to look at the servant man - he was pulling the sleeve of my kimono up, bunching it around my shoulder. Before I could ask what he intended to do, he lifted a familiar lacquered clay pot and uncorked it.  
  
I could smell the pungent healing ointment before he dipped his fingers in it and spread it liberally along my arm, massaging it gently into the driest areas. Then he bandaged me swiftly and gently with clean linen strips.  
  
I thanked him in a small voice and he bowed so low that his forehead touched the ground, then climbed gracefully to his feet and glided out the door.  
  
I watched his silhouette as he walked down the hall and out of sight.  
  
Then I lay back down and closed my eyes, trying to think.  
  
He had helped me. Why?  
  
Because Naraku still wanted something from me? Because he had just been nice?  
  
Did this man even know that Kagewaki (for I heard the men carrying the litter refer to Naraku by this stolen title) was dead, and that a demon had stolen his shape?   
  
While thinking of Naraku my thoughts turned to the last thing he had said to me that morning: "Until I learn how you were able to appear in the Exterminator's Village so suddenly, where your taiyoukai blood originates, and why I can sense a Shikon Shard inside of you."  
  
So I had to keep my vague knowledge of my origins to myself if I wanted to remain alive - that, and I had to figure out where it was exactly that the Shikon Shard was inside my body that shielded it from Naraku, and try to keep it from him.  
  
I had to protect it - and I had to get the hell out of there.  
  
But how to do it was another matter entirely. How do you escape a powerful demon when you can barely stand on your own?  
  
Praying that Naraku was too injured and weak to go prying in my mind, I closed my eyes and finally allowed my exhaustion to overtake me.  
  
Maybe I would be lucky, and be dead before I could awaken.  
  
~~~  
  
Around midnight the cloying scent of Sandalwood filled my nose and I found myself in my dreamscape, Naraku, still wearing Kagewaki's form, stood a few feet away from me, looking extremely unimpressed.  
  
"How did you get here?" he asked bluntly, and I knew from here on in there would be no more manipulating my nightmares to get the information he wanted. I answered, or I suffered.  
  
"I don't know," I replied truthfully. There was no point in lying. "I was asleep in my own bed, at home. Then I was jolted awake when I fell onto the floor of the hut. Then the monster attacked."  
  
His eyebrows drew down in a scowl, but he seemed to be mulling over what I'd said. Finally, after a long, tense silence, he nodded to himself and looked up at me again.  
  
"Are you descended from a youkai?"  
  
"I don't know," I said again, and watched as the frustration began to build on his face. I decided to amend my answer quickly, before he chose to strike at me with the first I could see him starting to make. "My father could have been! He died when I was small, too small for me to remember him."  
  
Again there was a pregnant pause.  
  
"Why do you have a Shikon Shard and where in your body is it? I see the glow of power. But it is too deep within your flesh to see clearly."  
  
I gapped like a landed fish for a second or two, unable to think of anything to say.  
  
"Come now, speak!" he bellowed, "Or I will simply rip open your rib-cage and search for myself!"  
  
"B-but..." I stuttered, "you do that and you'll never know where I'm from!"  
  
One corner of his lip curled up. "Little girl, don't misunderstand me. I NEED the Shikon Shard - while your origin is a tantalising mystery, it is not above my need. You will die if needs be."  
  
I felt a sudden twist in my guts of fear - and something else. Something else was ... pulsing... throbbing... warm...  
  
I folded my arms over my abdomen and bent double. What was this warm spot inside of me? I recognized it too - I felt this same warmth while watching the fight the night before.  
  
Naraku's red eyes narrowed and I knew he was studying my posture, trying to see where I held myself. I prayed that my hands blocked the glow of the shard, where ever it was in my body.  
  
"Ah. I see," he said slowly, his voice so low that I almost didn't hear him. I collapsed to my knees and pressed my forehead against the floor.  
  
"Please... please don't..." I whispered, not quite sure what I was asking him not to do. To not look at me? To not see the Shard? To not take it away?  
  
He was suddenly kneeling before me, having moved faster than I could see, and hand my chin gripped in his sharp-nailed hands. It hurt and I whimpered, and he gave me rough shake. When my face was forced up to meet his, I felt a surge of fear jolt through my blood - he was smirking.  
  
"I guess that explains your eyes," he crooned, and his lips pressed against mine.  
  
He tasted bitter.  
  
~~~  
  
I awoke.  
  
I could still taste the sourness of his kiss on my lips and I hated it. I could feel the sweat trickling down the bridge of my nose, sticking my kimono to my back and chest, and I hated it. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, giving me the shivers of a junkie, and I hated.  
  
I hated him.  
  
Then I noticed something new: another scent had begun to permeate the room I was in, drowning that of the sandalwood.  
  
It smelled like things that had been dead for a very long time.  
  
~~~  
  
Over the next two days I spent much time sleeping, eating, or gazing out the window. I was afraid to look at my reflection in the mirror, even though a maid had come and helped me to bathe and dress properly.  
  
I was terrified of the demon blood I would see there.  
  
The stench of death got worse everyday and soon I could hear the ferocious crashes and roars that came from the nearby mountain range. When I asked, the maid said that they were demons that served the master practising for battle.  
  
I knew that there was something more ominous to the truth of the matter than that, but it appeared that the maid knew even less of our perilous situation than I, so to avoid panicking her, I said nothing.  
  
Narkau did not visit me those two days, nor did he walk in my dreams again.   
  
I had just begun to build up my strength and had begun to think of escape when, on the third evening, Kohaku entered my chamber without first announcing himself, or my permission. As the Japanese around me were, as a general rule, unfailingly polite and formal, this rude behaviour disturbed me greatly.  
  
I shrank back as the boy approached my futon and then knelt beside me. He was not wearing his uniform today, nor did he carry his weapons. All he had on was an almost indecently short robe, tied simply at the waist.  
  
His blank eyes flashed fed and began to glow and I heard myself whimper as he raised a hand and let it rest lightly on my throat.  
  
"I know where your shard is," he said to me, barely moving his lips. But his voice was not his own - it was Kagewaki's. It was Naraku's. It took me a second to understand, but then things were clear - Naraku was talking to me through Kohaku, which meant he was still too weak to come in here and threaten me himself.  
  
The realization making me feel foolishly cocky I spat back, "Oh, yeah? Where?"  
  
I wish I had not said that.  
  
"The only place deep enough inside a woman's body to hide such a thing..." Kohaku rumbled, and his free hand dropped to my thigh. I gulped and tried to push him off, but I might as well have been beating my fists against concrete for all the good it did me. "The only place that my senses could not reach..." the hand on my thigh flicked away the folds of my robe and I was exposed. I tore at the hand that held me immobile by the throat, to no avail.  
  
"The only place it could be..." Kohaku continued, his hand moving upwards, "is... here."  
  
I threw back my head and screamed.  
  
~~~  
  
A/N : Next Chapter will contain themes unsuitable for the underaged. Ye be warned. 


	11. Dreamtrap

Spider, Part Eleven  
  
"Dreamtrap"  
  
by Vega  
  
I pushed on his shoulders, but the boy did not move.  
  
"Stop it, Kagewaki!" I cried. Kohaku's eyes, still burning that horrid red that I knew from behind the death's head mask, narrowed, but he did not stop.  
  
I bent over, resting my forehead on his chest, starting to grow disoriented by the strange combination of pain and pleasure. I still pushed, but his hands continued to burrow, unstopped. It hurt.   
  
I was not aroused, so there was no lubrication for his probing and I could feel my flesh split, smelled the blood flow over his knuckles, saw it stain the futon below me.  
  
"Please stop," I whined. "You're hurting me..."  
  
Kohaku spoke in Naraku's voice: "Where is it? This is the only part of your body that my gaze cannot penetrate. Where is it?"  
  
"I don't know, please stop..." I was full-out crying by this point, my breath hitching in my throat, forcing shudders to rack my entire frame.  
  
His response was to move the hand that was around my neck down, resting it between my breasts, and to push hard. I was shoved onto my back, the air leaving me in a woofing rush as I felt my spine come up to meet my stomach and my head knock against the hard wooden head-rest.  
  
Black spots danced before my eyes and the room began to spin. I could feel my gorge rising and the could hear the wet smacking sound of Kohaku's hand. I felt my kimono shoved up higher on my waist, my thighs yanked apart. I could feel Kohaku's hot breath on the side of my leg and guessed that he was peering inside of me, trying to see the jewel shard.  
  
Out of pure desperation, I jerked my leg and kneed him solidly in the temple.   
  
I heard Kohaku grunt in pain and fall to the side, on top of my other foot. I jerked that foot out from under him and drove my heel into his ear.  
  
The boy screamed and I hauled myself to my feet. Moving as fast as I was able, which was at a light jog thanks to my few days of rest, I rucked the long ends of my robe in my good hand, tucked the other into my waistband at the wrist, and sprinted for the door.  
  
I shoved it aside and began to barrel down the hallway. It was pitch black and only the watery light of the moon through the rice-paper screens kept me from running head-long into the pillars that dotted the way.  
  
I ran for a good few minutes, through the most twisted halls I could find, hoping to slow down any who may be following me, to trick them and hide.  
  
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the place, I came to a "T" intersection and paused, panting. Which way? Did I even know where the door to the outside of this palace was? And once there, would I be able to get past the servants that were already, no doubt, looking for me?  
  
Hearing footsteps behind me I panicked and ducked into a room to my left, skidding as my socked foot slipped on the highly polished wooden floor. I went down hard on my right side and choked back and agonized scram of pain. Tears collecting on my eyelashes I painfully pulled myself to my knees and dragged myself to the wall that divided the room I was in from the room next to it. I pulled myself up to my feet, painfully, and flattened myself along the wooden wall so my shadow would not be seen by those passing.  
  
I held my breath, trying to stop the wheezing of my exertion, my eyes glued to the screen-wall that opened onto the hallway, praying that they didn't find me. I had to get out of here.  
  
I was surprised to hear as they got closer, however, that the footsteps were falling not the heavy rapid rhythm of pursuers, but the even steady steps of many people walking together.   
  
"My Lord is very sick," I heard one man say as they passed by. "I am very glad, Miko, that you have decided to help him. They say great things about your powers - that you can take even death away."  
  
"I am but a simple Miko," I heard a female voice reply with humility, and I recognized it in an instant - it was the green-clad bow-wielder from the battle with Sango!  
  
"No," I whispered to myself, "...a trap?"  
  
The party paused outside the room I was hiding in and I feared that I had been heard. For a tense second I watched as their silhouettes arranged themselves as a group beside the door to the room I was hiding in. They entered the room beside mine, however, and I froze as I heard Kagewaki's distinctively low rumbling voice ask, "Who is this?"  
  
"This Miko is a great healer, my lord," the same servant said, and I listened carefully to the scrape and swishing sounds that told me he had bowed and left the room. After a second came the tamp tamp of the rest of he and the servants leaving.  
  
There was a pregnant pause, and then Naraku spoke.  
  
"Come closer," Kagewaki ordered her and I shook my head, willing her not to. Didn't she recognize him? "What is your name, Miko?"  
  
"Kikyou," she said softly.  
  
"Kikyou," he repeated. There was something in his voice, however... some sort of... satisfaction?  
  
I placed my ear against the wooden wall, straining to hear more, perhaps to find a clue that would help me and this deceived Miko to escape. I was so focussed on Naraku's plotting, however, that I did not hear the door to my own room slide open.  
  
I did not hear the footsteps approach.   
  
I did not even know Kohaku was behind me until I felt his hand on my mouth, his arm around my waist, and it was too late.  
  
~~~  
  
I tried to scream for the umpteenth time but still no sound leaked past the wad of fabric that had been forced into my mouth, then bound in place by another rag.  
  
I watched Kohaku as he paced along the rice-paper screen that separated this room from the garden outside. Left, to right, to left again, his eyes on his feet, no longer that glowing red, and my bright blue eyes flicking back and forth to follow him.  
  
I was sitting on the ground with nothing to cushion my bare legs from the cool hardwood flooring. My hands were tied at the wrist in front of me, hooked over my knees, and connected by a thin cord to the ropes that bound my ankles similarly.  
  
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't help that Miko who may or may not be dead now. I couldn't help myself.   
  
When Kohaku looked at me briefly on passing I shot him the most pathetic 'help me' look I could muster. The boy paused, hesitated, looked around him as if fearing he was being monitored, then swiftly and silently knelt before me and with gentle hands removed my gag.  
  
I sucked in a great breath, trying to rid my mouth of the tastes of fabric by scraping my tongue with my teeth. "Thank you."  
  
"Don't speak," the boy said, "he's fallen asleep in the room right there." He pointed to the wall that divided this room and the one next door.  
  
"Lets get out of here," I whispered, ignoring his command, "Let's get that Miko and go find your sister."  
  
Kohaku blinked at me. "I cannot."  
  
"Kohaku!" I hissed, "Cut me loose and let's go! You owe him nothing!"  
  
Kohaku stood and took a few steps away from me. I could see a faint magenta glow build, coming from the back of his right shoulder - his Shikon Shard was making a low thrumming sound.  
  
His eyes suddenly flared red and he smirked Naraku's smirk and said in Naraku's voice, "He owes me his life. And so do you, Ashirinu. You're both staying here, with me."  
  
The glow dissipated and I watched as Kohaku slowly came back to himself, shaking, tears pooling at the bottom of his brown eyes. "I-I c-can't get away..." he chattered, fear making him cold and unsteady. He dropped to his knees, and I winced at the loud cracking sound they made. "I c-can n-never get away..." He crawled forward slowly, cringing every time he put his full weight on one knee or the other. He picked up my discarded gag and held the wad of fabric back up to my mouth.   
  
I pressed my lips tightly - no way was I going to willingly let him stuff that thing back into my mouth.   
  
Kohaku sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry." Then he grabbed my jaw in a bone-cracking grip and forced his fingers and thumb into the joints at the hinge of my jaw, prying my mouth open. He stuffed the rag back into my mouth and tied the fabric around my head to keep me from spiting it back out.  
  
When he let me go I glared at him, and he turned away, to sit by the outside wall with his legs stretched out before him - I could already see the purple bruises blossoming on his skin and wondered briefly if he had broken his knee caps when he had collapsed.  
  
And then I curled in on myself, resting my forehead on my own knees, tipping myself so I fell slowly onto me left side and lay there on the floor.  
  
It looked like neither of us had anything better to do than wait.  
  
~~~  
  
I smelled the Sandalwood before I even realized that I had fallen asleep.  
  
In the dreamscape I was unbound and back in the hut in the burning village. There were no monsters around, no Naraku, no magenta glow of the Shikon Shards.  
  
Carefully I stuck my head out the door, smelled the acrid smoking tang in the air of the burning houses, heard the thick and sickening sizzling of the corpses on fire, watched as people ran too and fro screaming, fleeing from demons and trying to abate the fire.  
  
The smoke made my eyes water but I forced myself clear of the untouched hut I stood in and out into the square. I felt as if I were moving in slow motion - everything around me was precise, steady, rhythmical. I felt like I was watching a carefully choreographed ballet rather than mass genocide.  
  
A child ran by me, screaming, his little robe on fire. Reaching out, my hands moving so slowly but so perfectly, I snatched him by the waistband and shoved him down into the dirt at our feet, rolling him onto his back to douse the flames. The little boy screamed, his face scrunched up, contorted with agony, his skin blistering and charred. His hair was half burnt away on one side of his face.  
  
With a gasp I released him and staggered back a few spaces. Then I looked down at my own right arm - it was pure and whole. I forced myself back to the wailing boy's side, forced myself not to be repulsed by his appearance. I reached out with my right arm and touched the side of his face, intending to cool and soothe his hurt - what happened was the stuff of pure nightmare.  
  
The burn leapt from the flesh of his face onto my fingertips. I screamed, my voice lost in the sea of wails around me, the crackle of the fires and the roars of the attacking demons. The burn started to crawl up my arm, I could feel it, hot, painful, as it penetrated my blood and lapped at my bones. I could see the skin where it crawled up bubbling and smoking, liquid evaporating in a boiling pop on the surface. It was eating it's way up my arm.  
  
"Stop it!" I screamed, "Stop it!"  
  
The child sat up, a smile on his face. But it was an evil smile. He got to his feet and stood before me, his arms folded behind his back, his head eerily and fully healed.  
  
"How did you appear here?" the boy asked as his eyes began to glow red. "Why are you here?"  
  
"Make it stop!"  
  
"Answer me and I will."  
  
I doubled over myself, thrashing in the dirt, rolling, my back arching. I was crying so hard I thought I would stop breathing. The burn had begun to eat it's way over my elbow.  
  
"I dreampt this!" I finally screamed, not knowing where this strange answer had come from, but in my desperation, knew that it was true. "I had a nightmare about this, back at home! I knew these people, but I didn't know how! I saw their faces and I wanted to help them!"  
  
"How did you know them?"  
  
"I've... I've seen them before! In other dreams!" I screamed, the sound loud and high-pitched, "Make it stop!"  
  
The boy waved his hand and the pain stopped. I curled into the fetal position, cradling my arm, crying, panting, feeling like I was about to be sick. He reached out and his hand was soft when he brushed my hair back from my neck, his small thumb rubbing away the tears on my cheeks.  
  
"You've dreamed of this place before?"  
  
"O-of t-th... the past, y-yes..." I sobbed, my eyes squeezed shut.  
  
"The past?" the boy inquired. "This is the past?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"I see now," the boy said, but his voice was different. With each word it grew deeper. His hand drew larger, his touch rougher. His palm and fingers rested menacingly on my neck. "I understand who you are, where you are from. You are the descendant of these people, these doomed demon exterminators, aren't you? You carry ancient clan memories. You've watched them die in your sleep many nights, haven't you?"  
  
I nodded, finally remembering. With the scent of the smoke had come the flood of memory. Yes. I was Aslin. Aslin Volpe. I lived with my mother. My father had died when I was young. I was a Japanese-American! I lived in the States.   
  
Flashes of my dream of my great-grandmother filled my mind - yes, Mom had hated Dad's family ... we had moved away, to America, to get away from them. My great-grandmother had something hiding underneath her hair-buns. Something important. And her hair was red, even though she was so old... like my hair was red...  
  
My eyes widened and I finally understood.  
  
"Yesssss..." I heard the boy hiss, and I looked up at him. It was Naraku. The boy had been Naraku the whole time. I felt a a surge of anger blaze in me but I was in too much pain to fight him off. "You remember. Who are you?"  
  
"I am Aslin Volpe," I replied automatically, unthinkingly. This was his dream - I could still smell the sandalwood. I couldn't lie.  
  
"Where are you from?"  
  
"Far in the future. Five hundred years."  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"I wanted to save them."  
  
"But they're already dead." He laughed. "You know that."  
  
I struggled to grapple at what sanity I had left and kicked at him. He pinned my leg in his other hand, the one around my neck tightening threateningly. I could feel his nails pierce my flesh and I cringed.  
  
His expression was calm underneath his skull mask, which he had tipped up so I could see his face, his blazing red eyes. I looked... amused. "How did you get here?"  
  
I made a gurgling sound and he loosened his grip on my throat slightly. "I just wanted to be here, is all," I admitted, "I don't know."  
  
He said nothing and I realized he was thinking this over. "Your youkai blood and the Shard may have acted as elements to fulfil that yearning to be here - the Shikon no Tama has the power to grant wishes, they say."  
  
I shook my head - no, that can't be possible! By just wanting to be here, I was? But then... I WAS here, so it had to have happened somehow, didn't it?  
  
Naraku let me go, suddenly, and stood. With a flick of his head, his mask fell back into place and he was once more the white fur-clad demon with the fire eyes and the death's head mask. I cowered away, trying to drag myself backwards with my good arm.  
  
He chuckled. "Your fear is delightful. Now I understand it all. You are the offspring of many generations of filthy interbreeding between the last demon exterminator and a taiyoukai. You are the descendant of Sango."  
  
I shook my head, and he took a step forward to menace over me. I pulled myself backwards and he took another step, matching me move for move.  
  
"Or perhaps Kohaku," he mused, a smile growing in his voice. "I wonder if it is possible for him. Then again, you may even be the result of a rape..." he suddenly fell on me, grabbing both my wrists in one hand and yanking them above my head, oblivious of the burns. He pinned me to the hard ground with his weight, his other hand moving downwards. "... I could send a demon to violate Sango, see if she swells with child... or," he smiled again and moved his face closer to mine. His breath was sour and I turned my head away. "Perhaps I shall do it myself. What do you think of that? Perhaps you are my offspring as well..."  
  
"Let me go!" I shrieked. He only laughed.  
  
"Oh, no, my dear. You see, I have one puzzle solved..." I felt him flick aside the folds of my robe as casually as one draws apart the curtains in the morning. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his grin spread. "But there is still another. Why is there a Shikon Shard imbedded in your womb?"  
  
"My... my what?!"  
  
"I have finally realized why I cannot see the Shard inside you, and can only sense it's presence. The female vessel is a place of magics - a place that even demons cannot violate. This has protected this secret from me, but now that I know where it is, I will have it."  
  
"No!" I screamed, but Naraku had stopped listening to me. He pressed himself down on me, holding me still, his nails digging into my wrists. His other hand he plunged inside of me, and I felt a burning tearing. I screamed again, so loudly that I ...  
  
...I woke myself up.  
  
I could smell the sandalwood, see the incense hanging heavily in the air around me, swirling like some sort of obsessed dragon around my limbs and hair. Naraku was still on top of me, his hand up inside, but this time he wore the face of Kagewaki.  
  
"Ha!" he crowed and I saw his eyes flash with triumph.   
  
In a moment of pure frenzy I licked hard, aiming my heel at his nose. I connected, and there was a loud crunching sound and a spray of blackened ichor. He was thrown onto his back and I felt the agony of his hand pulling out of me. Blood issued from between my legs but I ignored it and scrambled to my feet, bolting for the door that lead tot he courtyard and freedom.  
  
I wouldn't get far, I knew. And I was leaving a trail - but better to try to escape than lay there and wait for him to kill me!  
  
For he had the Shikon Shard. I had seen the magenta glow pinched between his fingers when I stood up. He therefore had no more use for me.  
  
With a keening wail I pressed my hand to my belly and continued to stumble through the half-dead garden. I felt barren - I felt violated. Fuck, I felt like he had reaching into my belly and stolen a child from me!  
  
A low throbbing and a small spot of warmth pressed back against my hand and I paused in shock for a moment.  
  
But I had SEEN the shard in Naraku's hand. I had SEEN it – and yet I felt it inside me as well. So... did this mean that Naraku hadn't gotten all of it? That there was still a part of it in my body?  
  
Not wanting to risk him discovering this for himself I started to run again, looking behind me frantically to see if he was following, and consequently bashing right into Kohaku and landing on my ass.  
  
"Oh, no, no," I sobbed, coving my face and knowing that there was now no escape. He was dressed in his full warrior's regalia. "Kohaku, please..."  
  
"I can't," he whispered. He shifted his grip on his weapon, and the threat was obvious. "I'm sorry. I can't."   
  
~~~  
  
Author's Note:  
  
Well, there it is. Past the halfway mark and hopefully a lot revealed. If you're wondering who her ancenstors are, hang on, I WILL tell you... just not yet! I'm glad everyone is still enjoying this fic. *roots for over 100 reviews* I'm also noticing a lot of similarities between this story and "Across Time", but I think it's mostly because they're both about a female from a different era tossed into a completely alien situation, written in the first person. ^_^  
  
Review Replies:  
  
Sandalwood: *snicker* Apparantly her penname scared a few of this story's reader's... can't think of why... *innocent look*  
  
Bonessasan: I DO like your name! And I'm glad YOU got it from the beginning! Yay for people who pay attention!  
  
Aldea: Flatter - I KNOW when you live... I will kick you next time...  
  
Sashlea: Thank you for recommending to Sandalwood. I hope you liked this chapter. I kept it tame on purpose, so I could still post on ff.n but it was still very suggestive.  
  
Kairinu: Yes. I think "Ew" sums it up.  
  
anime-luvver: PLEASE no leet-speak. I hate the stuff and it takes forever for me to translate it into real English. But thank you for the compliments all the same. 


	12. Observations

Spider, Part Twelve  
  
"Observations"  
  
by Vega  
  
The sun was hot.  
  
I know that sounds like a ver ridiculous observation. Of COURSE the sun is hot.   
  
But when you have nothing better to do than lay on your back and stare at the sun, mark it's progress across the sky, and lick your parched lips in memory of stories of River Nymphs and Apollo, it seems to be a fairly astute observation.  
  
That's what it all boils down to, really, doesn't it?  
  
The sun was hot.  
  
I was very uncomfortable, too. That fact had made itself known to me quite early on as well. There was a twig under my thigh, a sharp pebble sticking into the small of my back... the upper half of me was laying on grass, so while it was course and itchy it was infinitely better than the beaten mountain path that my hips and legs were jumbled across.  
  
I was going to die.   
  
That was astute observation number three.  
  
I was already bleeding, and badly. From gashes on my arms and legs, from the slap Naraku had laid across my cheek that had split my lip, from the long scrape on my shins and the heels of my hands when I had been tripped by Kohaku's picks. From... down there.  
  
Bruises were forming, I could feel them - trimming the abrasions on my knuckles from where I had tried to punch him, around my broken toe, from where I had tried to kick him. The burns on my right arm had begun to bleed freely again, looking for all the world like lava flowing from between the charred remains of my cooled-rock skin.  
  
I could feel the light breeze ruffling the torn socks against my toes, ticking in a way I couldn't fix. My kimono lay mostly open, the folds wrenched apart from my frantic struggles, although the sash at my waist was miraculously still in one piece.  
  
My scalp prickled where Naraku had pulled out a small handful of hair. That had been mostly my doing: he had me by the hair, like some sort of wench, and I had jerked away.  
  
I didn't think any of my ribs were broken, despite the low gurgling sound every time I took a deep breath, but I couldn't be sure. They did hurt. A lot. One of my eyes was swelling shut already, and my lip held a lovely goose egg that I could peer at if I looked down my nose.  
  
My ear was throbbing. He had ripped the shard earring out of the lobe and I could feel the blood drying stickily on my neck, could hear the low buzz of the insects that the scent of rotting flesh and drying gore attracted.  
  
Yes. I was going to die.  
  
Compared to where I was, though, that didn't seem all that bad.   
  
I would never have to smell sandalwood again.  
  
~~~  
  
I didn't get worried until I heard the howling.  
  
It was well after sunset and I had surprised myself by remaining alive long enough to see it.  
  
I knew that I had been left here to die. Naraku had said as much.  
  
"You're pathetic and worthless and do not merit the waste of poison it would take to kill you. Do you find that amusing?" It was not a non sequitur. He had asked that because I had been laughing hysterically at the time. "I am going to leave you here. Right here. The wolf youkai roam these lands, Ashirinu. Vicious killers. Perhaps they are your ancestors, hm? You're going to be ripped apart by your own kin."  
  
Then he reached down and pulled the earring out of my earlobe, robbing me of my power to understand Japanese speech. And simply as all that, he left.  
  
It struck me as very James Bond Villain at the time. But upon reflection, and I had nothing to do all day BUT reflect, as I couldn't possibly move if I had wanted to, that this was another of his sadistic little games.  
  
Beat the shit outta me and leave me to be torn apart - once more staining hands that were not his own with innocent blood. He used his servants to fight. He used Kohaku, had tried to use Sango. He had worn other people's forms to trick and trap and destroy and now he was letting these wolves finish me for him.  
  
Fucking coward.  
  
That's what Naraku was.  
  
That's what I had screamed after him.  
  
He had not turned back. He had not cursed at me. He had not even given me the middle finger. I don't even know if he had understood me. He just kept walking, giving absolutely no indication that he had heard me at all.  
  
The day had passed with agonizing slowness and now night was here... and so were the wolves.  
  
Moving slowly, painfully, I managed to pull my left arm up to rest my hand over my abdomen. There I felt the low thrumming of the half of my Shikon Shard.  
  
Yes, even though I was about to die, I had, in a way, won.  
  
I still had part of what he sought. And he would never know that he had let it slip through his slimy fingers.  
  
The thought made me want to laugh, so I did.  
  
It hurt like hell and before I could do anything about it, the pain pulled a blanket of unconsciousness over me.  
  
The last thing I was aware of before I fainted completely was a wet nose snuffling at the blood on my thigh. 


	13. Wolfden

Spider, Part Thirteen  
  
"Wolfden"  
  
by Vega  
  
When I opened my eyes, the grass and dirt were gone from beneath me, replaced by a hard muscled shoulder jamming into my abdomen, covered with a tuft of... fur? I moaned at the bouncing motion and pryed my eyelids apart. One was still swollen shut, blackened by Naraku's fist, but through the other eye I could see the ground moving below me – and at a pace far faster than any person could possibly run.  
  
My mind immediately screamed, 'Demon!'  
  
"Don't move," I heard a voice hiss as I tried to crane my aching neck to look around. "You're very badly hurt."  
  
"Really?" I managed to whisper. "Hadn't noticed."   
  
I was really starting to get sick of all this half-dead crap.  
  
The voice - a young and strong sounding male - chuckled. "Quite the spirit you have there, hanyou."  
  
I blinked, translating 'hanyou' in my head - 'half demon'. Half demon? Me? Well... I supposed I had demon blood in me but...  
  
...and then I noticed it.  
  
I had UNDERSTOOD this man.  
  
I craned my neck in the opposite direction to focus my not-swollen-shut-eye on his face. He was smirking. His long black hair was bound in a high ponytail, his bangs pulled off his face by a brown bandana of what looked like fur. His skin was the same caramel of the other Japanese around me, but his ears were long and pointed. And his eyes...   
  
I gasped in shock.  
  
His eyes were the same vibrant blue of mine!  
  
"Just relax, sister," the man said again, "I'll get you to my den, and then you can tell me what happened."  
  
I nodded numbly then allowed myself to go limp, making it easier for my body to accept the shocks of his feet hit the ground - which was once only every few minutes, it seemed. He was running so fast I could feel the hear the wind tearing around us, and the dust storm billowing up behind.  
  
I peeked down, between his bare arm and armour-clad chest and saw more than the tornado that was being kicked up - I could see his thick brown tail.  
  
So that's why he had called me 'sister'! He was a hanyou too!  
  
~~~  
  
The den ended up being less the hole in the ground that I had imagined it would be, and more a very elaborate set of cave systems bordering a lush water-fall-fed oasis in the craggy grey landscape of the mountain range.  
  
We had been travelling for most of the day, the plains of grass that had bordered Naraku's lands slowly giving way to a rocky mountainside, and when this young man finally put me down on a rough pallet of dry grasses and furs I was in heaven. I ached everywhere. Not just from my wounds, or my destroyed right arm, but from the constant jostling of the ride as well.  
  
But hell, I could still wiggle my right ringers, and that made me happy.  
  
He set me down gently, and I eased back into the wall behind me, trying to ignore the whistling and cat calls of the other creatures around us. Some were like this man - human looking, with pointed ears and vibrant eyes, clad in metal torso sheathes and fur kilts with tails. Some were so completely in the forms of wolves that I shied away from their inquisitive wet noses when they ventured near.  
  
"Back off," the man who had been my rescuer snapped and shoved one of the wolves away when he tries to get his head under my hand, like a domesticated dog that wanted to be patted. But the light in his eyes was kind, and his touch was more playful than harsh. The wolf whined a little and ducked it's head. "No, I mean it. No eating her."   
  
Then it backed off to watch us from a distance of a few feet. The young man shook his head and it took me a moment to understand that he was chuckling.  
  
I swallowed hard at the "no eating". It was then that I noticed the sporadic piles of gnawed-upon bones strewn over the rough cave floor, their dried out white colour a sharp contrast to the dark damp stone. A few fires were lit as well, and I could see that this was more than just a wolf den - it was large enough to be the great hall of a palace, and just as spacious. Where chairs and tables would have been were convenient rocky outcroppings, that seemed to act as shelf beds when furs were laid down on them, and chairs when there were not. Where the throne would have been was a chipped out semi-circular stage, with a ridiculously large pile of furs - the den-leader's bed?  
  
The other thing I noticed as my gaze slid from face to hungry wolfish face was that there were no other females here. A fact that was accented when one of the human-shaped demons slid up to the young man who had carried me here and said, "Kouga... a female? Is she for us? Where did you find her? She reeks of... blech... rot."  
  
"Shut up, Ginta," my rescuer, the one addressed as 'Kouga', replied. "She's not for you. I found her. She's been hurt by something nasty. And check your nose again. She's not a youkai - she's hanyou."  
  
A murmur swept the crowd and the reactions were varied - some looked disgusted, some intrigued, and some down right happy. I think I was more afraid of the happy faces.  
  
"K-kouga?" I managed to croak out and he turned to look at me, eyes wide, "I'm sorry - can I address you this way?" He nodded and I continued. "Where am I?"  
  
"You're in my den," he said, pride touching his tone. "I am the Prince of this Tribe, the Wolf Youkai of the Western Lands." I noticed the katana sword at his side, in a lacquered black sheath and realized that this must be some sort of symbol of power - he was the only one carrying a weapon. "I found you on the borders of my land and brought you here. Now," he knelt before me, his body blocking from my view the rest of the cave, "can you tell me how you came to be so... damaged?"   
  
He reached up and gently touched the bruised swell under my eye, and I flinched.  
  
"I was..." Now, how on EARTH was going to explain my way out of this one? If I said the wrong thing, he just might tear me to pieces, and that was not what I wanted. What I DID want was to find a way to either use the little piece of Shikon Shard I had left inside me to wish myself back home, or to find this Inu Yasha and his Miko and get that girls help to get back to the future. I took a deep breath and started again. "I was attacked by a demon ... his name was Naraku."  
  
I paused and waited for a reaction. When I got none, I continued: "He stole... some gems that were precious to me," I pointed at my ruined earlobe, where Naraku had torn the earring out, and saw Kouga's eyes narrow with disgust. That was a good sign - meant that he was feeling sympathy for me and might even help me. "Then he left me for dead. Said he was going to leave me for the wolves."  
  
Kouga made e frustrated grunting sound and sat before me with his legs crossed, one hand rubbing his chin in a gesture of thought. "Did he know you're a canine hanyou, sister?"  
  
"I am?" I blinked, and he looked mildly surprised. There were a few exclamations behind him but he waved them into silence. "I mean, I know I'm at least part taiyoukai, that's what someone told me once, but I didn't know... I mean, I didn't know my father..." I trailed off and looked down at my feet, humiliated. One was still bleeding rather badly from where Naraku had sliced at me with his nails when I had tried to kick him.  
  
Kouga followed my gaze, then suddenly jumped to his feet. "Ginta!" he shouted, making both me and the skunk-haired youkai in question jump, "Clean water and bandages. Ointment too." As if waiting for the perfect opportunity, my stomach growled. Kouga looked back at me and smiled. "And you, Hakkaku, bring food and drink."  
  
Both men nodded with a quick, "Hai!" and dashed away. A few others tried to raise a protest:   
  
"But Kouga!"   
  
"She's a HANYOU."   
  
"Just kill her, she's not worth it!"  
  
Kouga turned to glare at those protesting and they tucked their tails between their legs and skulked off. I could see why this Kouga was the Prince - everyone was terrified of disobeying him. One of the wolves came up and snuffled at my foot and Kouga plopped down beside me and grabbed the creature by it's ruff, pulling it's muzzle away and sinking his face into the furry collar. "Didn't I tell you to leave her alone?" he asked it, then nudged it away. The wolf didn't go far - just a few steps. Then it lay down, put it's head on it's paws, and looked up at me with wide yellow eyes.  
  
I turned mine back to Kouga and found him studying me, his expression closed and unreadable. "What's your name, sister?"  
  
"Aslin."  
  
He nodded and I knew from experience that it would be a hard word for his Japanese-tongue to wrap around.  
  
"You're a hanyou, ne?" he muttered, "and you don't know your father?"  
  
I shook my head. "He left when I was little. Mother doesn't speak of him." For a moment I was choked with emotion, but I forced myself to continue. "I suspect that he was a hanyou himself, and I'm less."   
  
Kouga leaned towards me all of a sudden, looking as if he was about to kiss me, and I jerked back so fast I banged my head on the cave wall. I'd had quite enough of being kissed by demons!  
  
He chuckled when I hissed in pain and said, "I only want a better smell of your blood, if that's okay."  
  
I nodded carefully and he pressed his nose against the sensitive skin under my ear, right beside a nasty scratch. I had to suppress a shudder as his hot breath wafted over the sensitized torn tissue.  
  
He pulled back slowly, resuming his cross-legged position beside me and turned to look at the wolf - "You smell it too, eh?" The wolf closed and opened it's eyes, very deliberately, which gave me the impression he was nodding. Kouga bobbed his head in agreement, his long ponytail swaying, and said, "We both think so - there's more youkai in you than human, and that youkai is mixed."  
  
"Mixed?" I blinked, confused. Naraku had said nothing about that.  
  
"Hai. The shape of your face suggests a taiyoukai, the delicate cheekbones," he reached out and briefly ran sharp but gentle fingernails across one of the cheeks in question and I held deathly still. He dropped his hand back into his lap and continued, "but your eyes are the colour of us wolves when we're in our human shapes. I can also smell fox in you - that would explain your red hair, and something else..." his face twisted in disgust momentarily. "Dog. And then... something... I don't know... black... tainted. Cursed blood."  
  
I didn't like the sound of that. "C-cursed...?"  
  
Kouga began to rub his chin in concentration again. "One of your forebearers had a generational curse placed on them, is my guess. A powerful one."  
  
I closed my eyes, fighting back the sudden wave of nausea. My god, I was some sort of mutt! A cursed mutt!   
  
There was a long pause in the conversation as I thought this over, and when Ginta returned with the requested ointments, bandages and water, I suffered the treatment of my bruises and scrapes in silence. Kouga watched me carefully, sitting just off to the side with the wolf, taking it all in with guarded eyes. I accepted the willow-bark tea from Hakkaku after learning what it was - I knew from highschool chemistry that willow-bark tea was actually a liquid form of aspirin, and god, was I in the mood for a painkiller.  
  
Finally, when I had fed, pacified, and bandaged, the others withdrew, leaving just Kouga and I on this side of the cave, with the ever-silent wolf.  
  
"Why are you helping me?" I finally asked of him, and he looked up from where he had been watching his own hands running through the laying wolf's ruddy fur.  
  
"You're a canine youkai, sister," he shrugged, "Maybe part wolf. I owe you my help as blood kin."  
  
"Blood kin..." I repeated, unsure. I mean, was it even POSSIBLE that youkai still existed in my time? Could my father have been a demon of sorts? Or, rather, a mix of demons? Did my father have a tail?   
  
Did I used to have a tail?   
  
I resolved to check for scarring in the mirror next time I got the chance.  
  
And then I had a sudden flash of my great-grandmother and her ever-present twin-hairbuns. Ears! Great-grandmother had been hiding EARS. Ears on the top of her head, just as that Inu Yasha had! That HAD to be the answer.  
  
This revelation left me slightly numb, and when I asked my next question of Kouga, it was in a more distant voice: "Why did the others say it was ... pointless to try to help a Hanyou...?"  
  
Again, Kouga studied me before answering. "I guess you really don't know, do you? You must have lead a very sheltered life, sister. Most humans hate hanyou because they are part-youkai. Most youkai hate hanyou because they are part human. Do you understand? They have no real place to fit in. But you," he reached out and placed to gentle fingers under my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his own. "You're more than just hanyou, and part wolf I'd say at that. There are few female wolf youkai in the tribes these days, and almost none in the Western Lands. I decided to help you, sister, because you may prove valuable to us."  
  
I felt my lips and fingertips go cold. Was he really proposing that I... I stay here and... and...!  
  
"Now, wait a minute!" I said, shaking my head and willing my chin to stop trembling. "You're not suggesting that I--"  
  
"I'm not suggesting anything," he cut in. "Wolf Youkai women do what they want. But you wanted to know why I saved you. If I hadn't, you know," he added, lowering his head and looking up at me through his hanging bangs, "you'd probably be dead by now."  
  
"I know," I said quickly, "and thank you."  
  
He sighed and unfolded himself, pulling himself up onto his feet. "I see I've upset you. I have some hungry wolves to feed, so I must be off. Excuse me. Kabau will watch over you until I get back." He gestured to indicate that 'Kabau' was the yellow-eyed wolf lying near to us for the entirety of our conversation.  
  
The wolf in question made a deep growling sound at me and crawled forward until his muzzle was resting on my thigh. At first I balked, thinking myself threatened, but he wriggled his head under my bandaged hand and I realized that the sound he was giving off was not a growl but a deep-doggy style purr, and that he wanted the fur between his ears scratched.  
  
I complied and Kouga smiled, then turned on his heel and marched into the centre of the cave, pony tail and wolf tail whipping around to follow. "Alright! Third hunting party follow me down to the village! The human population's getting to thick again - it's dinner time! The rest of you - the hanyou girl is HANDS OFF."  
  
He and a pack of the wolf-shaped youkai ran out of the cave, baying and howling, panting like excited puppies, and I felt that oh-so-familiar twist in my gut that told me my mind was rebelling to a disgusting revelation.  
  
The human population? Thinning out? Dinner time!?  
  
I closed my eyes and forced away these thoughts, focussing instead on the rhythmic, sanity-retaining repetitive motion of petting the wolf in my lap.  
  
What had I gotten myself into NOW?  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays of all sorts! And, for those following along with thier anime, (hint hint), we're just before episode 36 now...  
  
Also, I'm am GRATEFULLY accepting any and all fanart. I'm also tentitively searching for someone to illustrate this as a fancomic. I'd be willing to re-format it to comic-book script format. I just need an artist! Whaa!  
  
Reviews:  
  
(If I've missed anyone, I'm sorry - it's hard to keep track of who I've addressed and who I haven't. Suffice it to say, I appreciate EVERYTHING EVERYONE says to me ... even flames! Because Negative feedback is better than none - at least you KNOW you suck then!)  
  
Anime-luvver: "Leet" is that lazy typing, where you avoid full words and sentences and replace numbers for letters. Good for text messaging. Annoying online. I find it so annoying because, *gasp* I really AM an author. ^____^ You've mentioned twice that you think I sound like a prof. writer - guess what! I'm at a small Canadian university for Dramatic Literature (focus on Playwriting), and a Classical Studies (focus on Greacian and Roman Mythology). ^_^ Ta da! So now you know the truth! Good eye, to spot me like that.  
  
Sashlea: Alright, the next lemony bit may be more lemony than the last. You also have to remember, it's a traumatic experience for the narrator - she may not WANT to go into detail. I liked that she laughed at Naraku too - makes her more human, doesn't it? It's something I'd do - break down into helpless fits of hysterical laugher in a desperate situation. Okay, so maybe I'm wierd...  
  
NeoGenesis1: Well, THANK YOU. I hate getting trapped on a story when the author won't update (BTW - if XANTHOS is reading this.. *whine* "The Red Hunger"... please?!.. I love plausible otherpairing fics...) Anyway, I try to stay on top of things when I update, mostly because I don't want the story to fade in my head. The worse I've ever been is with "A Deal With Dracula" - I update only once every two years or so. I'm bad.  
  
Kairinu: I actually have no idea if Sandalwood is used in manipulating dreams. I chose it because it was a heavy, heady, cloying (if you get too much) an above all RECOGNIZABLE scent. People who have smelled sandalwood will think, "oh, yes! I know that scent!" when they read those parts. Hopefully some of them will get wigged when they smell it elsewhere after reading... that's a sign of a good author!  
  
InuyashazFukaiMori: *laughs* Yay for youthful exuberance! I'm updating already, kk? On Christmas Day and all!  
  
Raylee: Goodness, don't get grounded on my account. And be good, okay? No more getting into trouble, 'cause that sucks for everyone involved, not just you. Okay, sweetie?  
  
Sandalwood: *snicker* Same thing happens to me when I read "Vega" somewhere else. I love my handle and I've had it for... oh... going on 12 years now. My friends call me that instead of my real name, and even when I was a camp councillor it was my nick. I love it. Read "Across Time" to understand why it suits me so much. ^_^ Why YES, that WAS a shameless plug... 


	14. Shippou

Spider, Part Fourteen  
  
"Shippou"  
  
by Vega  
  
I focussed my thoughts on how it was that I could still understand these people speaking when I had lost the Shikon Shard earring, rather than on what it was that I might have had for dinner. The meat Hakkaku had passed to me was already cooked when I had accepted it, so I was unable to recognize it, and for all I know, it could have been a human's leg or something.  
  
Not willing to loose my lunch in front of this crowd, I had turned my mind to other things.  
  
Like where Naraku and Kohaku may be right now, and why I could still understand the Japanese spoken all around me. True, I was Japanese-American, my mother having been the Yank, but I had grown up in the states - I knew nothing more than the hackneyed "Doumo arigato, Mister Roboto."   
  
So had I been learning the language the whole time while I'd had the earring? Or was it the shard still imbedded in my uterus and my wish to be able to communicate that was doing it? After a few long hours of pondering this I decided to leave well enough alone - it was happening, and it was best not to question how, lest I mess my good luck up.  
  
That left Naraku and Kohaku to ponder.  
  
Obviously, I couldn't believe anything Naraku had told me was the truth, but then who was that Inu Yasha guy that Naraku hated so much, and where did that Miko who had parts of the Shikon no Tama come from?  
  
And what of this hereditary curse that Kouga had spoken of? Had he been telling the truth? If so, what was the effect of the curse and when would it kick in? Or had it already? Was the imprisonment in this ancient world the backlash? Or had the Youkai Prince been putting me on? If he had been, to what point and purpose?  
  
My mind ran for hours in circles like frenzied icy mice and when the painkillers finally wore off and all my aches and bruises began to make themselves known, I shifted myself and wriggled down the wall until I was horizontal, curled up to Kabau, and let sleep take away the pain for a short while.  
  
~~~  
  
When I awoke, it was very dark, and I assumed it was now night. Only one of the fires still burned and most of the rest tribe was asleep. Kouga had returned, however, and very much awake as he was pacing back and forth across the back of the cave, muttering to himself.  
  
"Damned Mutt-faced hanyou, keh! But the woman, the woman could sense Shikon Shards... she could be useful... very useful..." and other such ramblings that I did not catch, or which followed the same general gist.  
  
I desperately wanted to know what was going on, but bit my tongue instead. If Kouga wanted to tell me, he would. After spying on Sango and Naraku's battle, and getting the shit beat outta me for it, I was in no mood to pry into anyone's personal affairs any more, Shikon Shards or not. I shifted so as I to go back to sleep and Kabau sat up and thumped his tail a few times against the ground like a domesticated dog, splitting his yellow gaze between me and Kouga.  
  
Tattle-tail.  
  
Kouga heard the sound and came over to investigate, and found me awake.  
  
"Oh, up are you?" he asked, and his blue eyes were virtually glowing in the darkness. I wondered if mine were doing the same. He reached out and patted Kabau on the head.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Did the tea wear off? Do you want more?"  
  
"I... no thank you," I said, deciding it would be better to be alert and in pain than drowsy and drugged when dealing with these wolf youkai. They were more or less still wild animals after all.  
  
"Are you warm enough?"  
  
"Yes... thank you."  
  
Kouga grunted and nodded briefly.  
  
"Thank you," I repeated, and waited until he met my eyes before I continued. "For everything. I mean, honestly, thank you. I ... I really haven't seen much kindness lately and it... um..." I paused, forcing back a sniffle, "it means a lot to me."  
  
Kouga looked at me as if I was a strange two-headed bug.  
  
Alright, so the Prince of the Wolves wasn't used to being thanked. Or seeing a young woman refuse to break into tears of stress. I turned my head away and stared at the fire in the middle of the cave instead. I heard Kouga take a breath, as if to say something, but the words never came. Eventually he turned away and went to his own pallet - the stage-like mound of furs in the middle back of the cavern.  
  
After a while I heard him muttering to himself again, but ignored it and lay back down to sleep.  
  
I was grateful for Kabau's warmth.  
  
~~~  
  
The next morning passed without much incident. Hakkaku and Ginta were sent out to search out a party of trespassers on wolf land, while others went off to hunt or patrol. I caught from snippets of conversation the word "Gokurakuchou" - I had no idea what it meant, but from the way it the word was used I assumed it meant 'enemy' or was the name of a rival clan.  
  
These wolves had been attacked rather severely on numerous occasions by these "Gokurakuchou", dwindling their numbers dangerously. The enemy had also begun to invade their territory, killing all life indiscriminately and throwing the local eco-system dangerously out of whack.  
  
If attacks continued in this manner, not only the Wolves but all living things in the mountains would be nothing more than a distant memory. I sincerely hoped that this was the reason that the Wolves had been using the local human population as prey, rather than pure meanness. Kouga seemed so nice, I didn't want to have to hate him.  
  
As the night before, I spent much time trying to decipher the mystery that was me. Just a few weeks earlier I had been fine: normal, average, comfortable, even a bit boring. Now I was the mixed-mutt hanyou daughter of God knows what with a hereditary curse hanging over my head and a piece of an ancient and powerful jewel stuck in my friggin' womb.  
  
And HOW on EARTH had THAT gotten THERE?  
  
The only thing I could think of, after many long hours of pondering, was that I had been born with it there. Which meant that somehow my mother had had it in her body when she had been carrying it.... unless it had somehow been transferred to me by my father? I imagined the biological parts of me that I had inherited from my Dad had been far smaller than this shard had been so unless the magic of the Shikon no Tama had somehow... I sighed heavily and shook my head.  
  
Magic was just too damned difficult to figure out. Although I did notice in my musings that I no longer balked at the idea of it's existence. Hard to not accept what you had seen with your own eyes, I suppose. And I had seen a lot lately.  
  
The other wolf youkai did as ordered and mostly stayed away from me, for which I was grateful. I wanted to talk to someone sometimes, mostly to alleviate either boredom or curiosity, but mostly I just slept, trying to recover my strength. The swelling around my eye had gone down, and many of my bruises were starting to turn a healing yellow.  
  
When another youkai approached, human or wolf-shaped, Kabau would give a small warning growl. He only let those bearing food or more of the painkilling tea advance.  
  
Hakkaku and Ginta eventually returned in mid afternoon with full water sacks and information. I didn't catch any of what was said, obviously, but a half dozen wolves were sent out of the cave with the order to "join Kouga".  
  
Around sunset Kouga and his escort of wolves came back, but not alone. He was hauling the uniform-clad Miko girl from the future in by the arm! I attempted to call out to her, but Kabau let forth a small yip and stared at me - the message was obvious: "This is serious. Shut up."  
  
I shut up and watched, leanign back against the cave wall and praying that nothing and no one would harm the girl before I had a chance to ask for her help. I watched with the sort of unnerved fascination that those passing a bad car crash have as Kouga threw her onto his pallet and told the others not to eat her, as he had told them with me.  
  
It then became clear over the course of their conversation - shouting match, rather - that Kouga wanted to use her to find the Shikon Shards that the Gokurakuchou leader possessed so that he may kill it and take them for himself. This was illustrated when two of the human-shaped wolf youkai were carried in on stretchers, freshly attacked by the Gokurakuchou; one clutched three grey feathers in his fist, which I know meant something to the others but not to me.  
  
It became equally clear, however, that this girl had no desire or inclination to help him whatsoever.  
  
Kouga forced the issue, nevertheless, when he found a spy from the Miko's party stowing away on the hem of his fur kilt (a small boy in a blue haori with pointed ears, red hair, and a tail of his own) and threatened to have the child killed if the Miko didn't co-operate. She relented and the child - I recognized him then as the small boy from Naraku's palace that had worried over the Demon Cat - ran into her arms screaming 'K-Kaaaagoooomeee!'  
  
Kouga left soon thereafter to go hunting, and the rest of the wolves were left to guard the cave and their precious prisoner - she was the key to their continued survival after all, and maybe mine too, despite her petulant reluctance to help them.  
  
I watched in amazement from my pallet against the wall, will hidden by the shadows the fires cast from the Miko and child's eyes, as the boy transformed himself into a very believable copy of Kouga and proceeded to make a bid for freedom with Kagome in tow as if she were being lead by the Youkai Prince somewhere.  
  
As much as I wanted to call out to them then, "Take me with you!" I knew I was too ill still to move. I would be a liability. I wanted them free and clear of this place, (as I assumed that Kagome would be more willing to help me if she wasn't a prisoner, and resolved to try to find her again when I was well enough) so I said nothing to alert the wolves. They were found out just at the cave's entrance when the kid's own tail, a rather short and curly orangey hue was discovered by a wolf and nipped out of playful curiosity.  
  
The child cried out in pain and the illusion around him vanished.  
  
"Fox magic!" one of the youkai hissed, surprised.  
  
"Betrayer!" cried another, and they attacked en masse. Kagome grabbed the kid, screaming, "Shippou!" and they ran.  
  
Shippou.  
  
Shippou...a dissonant chord of recognition was struck in me....  
  
When the youkai returned to the cave not more than ten minutes later, Kagome was on the shoulder of the REAL Kouga, and Shippou was no where in sight. A pity, really, because I had wanted to ask him where I knew his name from...  
  
Kagome proceeded to fall asleep when Kouga let her go, pointedly ignoring the heated tongue lashing of the Youkai Prince, and I decided that perhaps it would be best if I did the same. Hopefully my night-time expression wouldn't convey my desperation to get home, or my distaste for Kouga's methods. I lay down and tried to arrange my kimono so that it wouldn't ride up as I slept.  
  
Before I could drift off, I heard the rustle and felt the nearby warmth leave as Kabau climbed to all fours and padded a few paces away before sitting again. I sat up and found myself face to face with Kouga.  
  
Kouga sat down in front of me, his back to the rest of the cave and the pack it sheltered. He studied my face for a long while, assessing the extent of my healing, and said, "Your eye has turned bloody."  
  
"What?" I raised my left hand to my face and he retrieved a mirror from a pouch at his waist and handed to me.  
  
"I took that from the village last night. Look at yourself."  
  
I looked, and was slightly horrified by what I saw. A lurid purple bruise that complimented the blue of my eyes decorated half of my face. The whites of the actual eye that had been blackened was indeed bloody - a few small blood vessels must have been damaged for I had a slick red-spot beside my iris.  
  
My bottom lip was torn, in the middle and at the edge, and shone with an herbal ointment that was preventing an infection from entering the wounds. There were other various scratches and bruises, but none that I thought would remain permanently.   
  
I turned the reflective side of the mirror to face the Prince. "You don't look so hot yourself. Your cheek is bruised. Did someone slap you?"  
  
I could see the muscles jump in his face as he clenched his jaw, suppressing an obvious wave of anger. His electric blue eyes flickered back to Kagome's sleeping form for a moment and I clued in. She must have nailed him a good one, and his pride was hurt.  
  
Slowly I handed the mirror back to Kouga. Then I looked deliberately over his shoulder at the Miko with a disapproving glance.  
  
"Is she your hostage?"  
  
Kouga shook his head. "She's a Miko, and she can sense the Shikon Shards. I will use her to defeat the Gokurakuchou, then to collect up the rest of the Shards. She's also a very wise and powerful woman... I think I'll make her my mate."  
  
I blinked, hoping that he didn't already know about the Shard I carried and that it's existence remained shrouded to his keen senses. "What? Just like that?"  
  
He smirked and touched my shoulder lightly. "Don't be jealous, sister. I was thinking of taking you as my mate, but she's more powerful, even if she is a human. Think of how strong our pups will be! I'll give you to Ginta instead. He likes you."  
  
I slapped his hand away. "You ego-centric git!" He blinked at me, stung. "You can't just give someone away! I'm not a member of your pack! And you especially can't do it to that Miko girl! She has other obligations!"  
  
Kouga frowned. Then he stood and stalked away. Kabau whined as he looked at me, his ears flattened.  
  
"Oh, I know this routine, already," I snapped at the wolf, "I've done the 'piss-off-the-demon-with-your-life-in-his-hands' dance before." Kabau sniffed and turned his tail to me, then lay down. Equally annoyed, I turned my back to him and lay down and forced myself to sleep.  
  
I didn't know it then, but Kagome had been awake for the entire exchange, and had been studying me closely.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
Short one today, sorry about that. Hope this helps to clear things up.   
  
I know this whole story has been really confusing - one review said "more than once this story has made me go, oh, now i understand . . . wait, NO I DON'T!" which I think sums it up perfectly. As a reader, you're getting the clues to what's going on as Aslin does. *hint - check the meaning of her last name* I'm dropping WAY more clues than you can see, and in fact expected more people to figure it out by now. I think, however, that once you've read the whole thing you'll go back adn re-read it and go, "OH! That was OBVIOUS. Why did I get it?" At least, that's what I'm hoping for.  
  
Again, thanks to everyone reviewing, it means a lot to me - just forty reviews away from 100 and hey! This one broke my record set at 58 with "Standign on the Edge"!  
  
Reviews:  
  
Kataionna: I'm happy you find it interesting. You'll kick yourself when you realize who she is. ^_^  
  
Skitzoflame: No, I don't plan on chaning anyone from the series, so Kouga will remain "good". However, don't overlook the fact that although he technically IS one of the 'good guys', he still allows his pack to slaughter entire villages of people, and kills indescriminately when it suits his purpose. He's still a youkai.  
  
sandalwoods: Ah! I've never met a real buddhist before! In the series Ayame is the grandaughter of the white wolf king fo the Northern Tribes. She is hurt as a child and Kouga promises to marry her after rescuing her - when she is old enough she tracks him down and asks him to make good on his promise. Problem is he's forgtten he even made it and is now madly in love with Kagome. He tells Ayame he'll marry here when she too can see the Shikon Shards and she speeds off vowing to learn how to do so. (Kagome calls him "cruel" because everyone knows Ayame will never succeed) And yes, her eyes are green, as are all Northern Wolf Youkai's, as far as I've seen. And no, Aslin is not Ayame.  
  
Pallas Athena1: Neener, neener, neener! I'm stumping a braaaaaain! ^________^  
  
ellie: Here's your update. I'm very pleased that I'm keeping you guessing - it means I'm doing my job right! 


	15. Funeral

Spider, Part Fifteen  
  
"Funeral"  
  
by Vega  
  
It was a dream, again, and this time no sandalwood scent tickled my nose. Which meant that the memories the dreams were built on were entirely my own. I was dreaming of my great-grandmother again - my father's grandmother.  
  
In the dream, I was very very young.  
  
I don't remember where we were... somewhere strange and solemn. I thought about it long and hard and realized that we were sitting on a sofa with the older lady in a long cherry-panelled hallway. I was wearing a new dress, and it was all black. There were many people milling around us, also wearing black. Some of them looked like normal Caucasians, and some like regular Asians, but there were others...  
  
Others with bright amber eyes. Others with long silver hair. Others with strange tattoos and long fingernails. Others that were so tall they had to duck to go through doors. Others so short that I towered over them.  
  
My mother was in the room behind me, and I could hear her crying. I wondered where my father was - I couldn't see him. I hadn't seen him in days, not since Mom and my's last visit to see him in the hospital. And Mom hadn't stopped crying since.  
  
I was sitting on great-grandmother's lap, on this sofa in the hallway. It was a coral coloured sofa, I remember that, because I had been staring at the cushions for a long time before great-grandmother found me there and hoisted me onto her lap.   
  
She was very strong and limber for an old lady. And her hair was so very red. It sat curled in two buns at the top of her head.  
  
"Aslin, honey," she said, and her eyes drifted to the new patent leather shoes on my feet. "Ah, those were the right size for you. I'm glad you like them."  
  
I didn't like them, of course, but Mom told me it was impolite to tell someone that you hate the gift they've given you.   
  
Great-grandmother patted the shiny black shoes once, then her leather-like hand reached lower, into the black crocheted bag that was under the sofa. She pulled it up and with my help we freed a wooden case the size of her lap from the bag.   
  
"Now, are you paying attention, dear?" I nodded and watched carefully as she spun a code on the lock on the side of the case - I don't remember what the numbers were, of course, but I knew that a secret code was needed to gain access. Then she pulled the case open and let the lid rest against her knee. "Your father was supposed to show you this, when you were old enough, sweetheart, but now..." her eyes flickered briefly to the room behind us, then back to my face. She forced a smile. "I don't know how long your Mother will remain in contact with us, so I have to do this now. This, Aslin Volpe, is your family."  
  
She gestured to everyone around us, and a few of the strange looking ones waved or winked at us as they were indicated. I waved back tentatively. Then great-grandmother gestured at the case in her lap. "And this is your family too. This is your history, Aslin. This is where your power comes from."  
  
My dream child-self didn't understand, but my now-self waited eagerly for great-grandmother to continue. I didn't remember this day from my childhood, but I knew this information was that which I was seeking. This would explain my youkai blood.  
  
Great-grandmother picked up a photograph that sat on the top of the pile. "This is your mother and father, as you know, Aslin. Your father, Okami, was my daughter Yuki's son. Yuki is in the other room with your mother right now. This," she pulled an old black and white photograph of a pretty lady in an elaborate kimono and wide, crisp obi, from under the picture of Dad and Mom. She had a very white face and an elaborate hairstyle. Two loops of hair resembled ears. "Is Yuki, your grandmother. She was a geisha in the Kyoto district. She met a lovely Italian business man there and they were married and had Okami."  
  
Great-grandmother set aside those photographs and picked up a delicate looking scroll of rice paper. This she unrolled and an ink painting of a young Japanese woman in an simplistic yet beautiful kimono unfolded before my awe-struck eyes.  
  
"This is me," great-grandmother said, "This is Suneki when she was just a young woman. We didn't have cameras then. Oh, it was a long time ago. The people of our line don't live as long as we used to, but us older ones can still span centuries. I ended up falling in love with a short-lived ningen, of course..."   
  
She set that aside in favour of another, similar yet older scroll. By this time several of the strange people around us had drawn close to look over our shoulders. There were shouts of, "Oh, lookit what Yuki used to look like!" or "That's my aunty!", and other similar things, but I blocked them out.  
  
I needed to know who was next.  
  
This scroll also held an ink painting of a young woman, but her kimono was slightly more elaborate, the brush strokes more delicate and light. Art from a different era.  
  
"This is my Mother, Kitsu. She was the daughter of a Powerful Lord. He lost some of his power later, and now there is no record that our family even held the position at all. I marvelled that she had the same vibrant red hair of my great-grandmother's. "She married a Ningen. My Mother, passed away during the first world war. It was all just too shocking for her. Ah, this," she set aside the scrolls for a wood carving, again, of a lovely young woman, except this time she was dressed in wide pants with a haori shirt and held a bow and quiver. I could see the flaking paint on the block, and saw that the pants used to be red, the haori cream coloured. Her hair, strangely, seemed to have been painted a light grey.  
  
My child-dream-self didn't know it, of course, but my now-self recognized her - she reminded me of the Miko girl.   
  
"This," great-grandmother continued, "is the Miko Kaede. She was named after an old family legend. She was a great priestess, very kind and very powerful."  
  
Around us a few of the strange people murmured their consent. "She married a wolf youkai by the name of Ginta. Both were slain in the Meji wars, along with Ginta's best friend Hakkaku. Ah," she laughed slightly as she found a small rock painted to look like a face. "Kitsu painted this of her father's friend Kouga. Kouga's still around here somewhere, I suppose. He had been desperately in love with a Miko, who had chosen to marry a hanyou over him. There was another woman he had loved as well, a hanyou girl whose name no one can remember, but she vanished before he could ask her to be his mate, while he was still seeking out the Miko. There was a youkai girl too, Ayame, but she ended up marrying a prince in a political alliance with the southern Wolf Tribe."  
  
The long list of names was starting to make my child-self head's spin, but my now-self recognized the people she spoke of. Good god! I was descended from the Skunk-haired Wolf Youkai Ginta!? The same one that Kouga said he would GIVE me to!?  
  
Creepy!  
  
It was obvious that I would have to get away from the wolves, and soon, if I didn't want to throw a proverbial wrench in history.  
  
And who was this other woman that Kouga wanted? Obviously the Miko he pinned for was the Kagome I knew now, and the hanyou she married had to be that Inu Yasha. Did I know this other hanyou woman? Had I met her already without knowing it? Perhaps while I was held prisoner by Naraku?  
  
And the thought that Kouga may still be skulking around in the modern world sort of made my skin crawl. I could have run into him before when I was younger and not have even known it.  
  
Great-grandmother set aside the rock and shifted through piles of other photos and scrolls of similar looking people - Aunts, Uncles and cousins, I expected - and finally retrieved an ink painting of two people.  
  
One was a lovely young lady with silver hair and bright green eyes. She carried a long glaive, and her hair was drawn up in a high ponytail. Her clothing was tight and black and I could tell instantly that it was of the same design as Sango's uniform. "This is Kakera," my great-grandmother pointed to the woman with gnarled fingers, "a great youkai taijiya." Then she pointed to the young man beside her in the most embellished outfit I had ever seen. It resembled Kagewaki's, but by the detail in the patterns, I could tell it was far more expensive. "This is her husband, a Kitsune Youkai named Shippou. He was a Kitsune Taiyoukai in the Feudal Wars era. He gained the position after the Taiyoukai before him adopted him as his son for his bravery. Shippou, you see, was a member of the Naraku o ou Mono: those who pursed Naraku."  
  
I shuddered in my now-body and I felt Kabau snuggle closer to my physical body on the pelts, probably thinking I was shivering with the cold.  
  
Shippou. THAT's where I knew the name from. Shippou was my great-great-great-great-grandfather! I looked at the painting before me again and yes, his hair was the same bright red, and I could just make out his tail poking out of the back of his haori, and the pointed ears.  
  
And the 'Naraku o ou Mono'... .Those Who Pursued Naraku'... they had to be the people I saw at Naraku's castle, attacking... the monk, the miko, the child, the warrior, the cat, and the hanyou... these people would pass into legend, and I had watched them fight.  
  
I wanted to stop the dream, to change it from a memory into a reality where I could ask questions, ask what had happened them, ask where I fit in with history...  
  
But this was the re-living of a distant and forgotten memory, and nothing more.  
  
Great-grandmother plowed on, pointing to yet another woodcutting, but I had trouble paying attention. That child I had seen, the one Kouga had tried to get the wolves to kill, he was one of my ancestors!?  
  
"This is Souta," the old woman said, and pointed to the male on the woodcutting. I gasped because he looked almost exactly like that Inu Yasha hanyou! "He is the son of a hanyou named Inu Yasha and the Miko Kagome. They were part of the 'Naraku o ou Mono' as well. Souta married this woman, Yumirin," he pointed to a black-haired human lovely, "the daughter of a youkai taijya named Sango, and the Houshin Miroku. Also members of 'Naraku o ou Mono,' the last of whom was Kouga. Miroku had been cursed by Naraku with a kazana and their daughter was born before he was slain - to prevent the curse from continuing Kagome gave Sango a shard of the legendary Shikon no Tama, and placed it within her womb. That shard has been reborn inside each generation's female - and has been passed onto you, sweetheart."  
  
Great-grandmother rubbed my tummy and my child-self didn't understand at all why she was doing it. My now self was paralysed with horror and understanding.  
  
"Legend says that one of her ancestors travelled back and time to return the shard to the Miko Kagome so she could repair the Shikon no Tama, and use it to destroy the evil Naraku, but no one has done that in this family yet. The traveller may be many generations off, yet, Aslin."  
  
"Don't stop there," a deep voice rumbled and great-grandmother and I both looked up into the handsome face of a young man with silver hair and strange moon and slash-shaped markings on his face. They looked like too permanent a kind of mark to have been tattoos. "What of Inu Yasha's father, the Great Inu Taiyoukai?"  
  
"I have not forgotten, Sesshoumaru-sama," great-grandmother smiled at the young man. She pulled out another woodcutting, this time of a large white dog. "This is Inu Yasha and Sesshoumaru's father, the Great Inu Taiyoukai. Sesshoumaru-sama here, Aslin, is the Lord of the Western Lands. He is also your great-great-great-great-great-great-Uncle."  
  
Sesshoumaru put a finger under my chin and turned my chubby face to his, his golden eyes narrowing so he could study me. "She has the eyes of the Wolves. But she looks like my half-brother... her nose is the same, turned up. Is she Okami's daughter?"  
  
My Great-grandmother nodded.   
  
"Ah, then my deepest sympathies, for the loss of your grandson, Suneki," the man rumbled. He bowed formally to my great-grandmother, which I thought strange, and she bowed back, but hers was far more deep. He then excused himself, and everyone else around us bowed deeply too.  
  
"Wait!" I said as he walked away, and everyone assembled gasped at my audacity. I didn't realize that I had committed an offence of decorum as I scrambled off my great-grandmother's lap to run after him and tug on his blazer tail. I was too young and far too Western to know how one was supposed to address a taiyoukai. "What happened to Inu Yasha? Is he still alive?"  
  
Sesshoumaru's eyes flashed briefly, and then he knelt to meet my eyes. I could hear the murmurs of disbelief around me. "You are quite the audacious one," he smiled gently. "You remind me of my Rin. To answer your question, child... Inu Yasha and his Miko Kagome are now figures of youkai legend. They used the Shikon no Tama to fight the evil youkai of the world for countless years, purifying many, including myself... After Kagome, who was human, passed away, Inu Yasha consumed the Shikon no Tama and made himself human as well - he followed his beloved Miko soon after."  
  
He then stood, patted my head, and wandered into the other room, where I had heard my mother crying earlier. I turned back to my great-grandmother, to see that she had packed up all of the pictures and scrolls already. I walked back over to her, and she made as if to hand me the wooden case.   
  
"This is for you, Aslin, to remember the stories with and to pass them onto your children."  
  
I nodded and reached up and out for the case, but before I could touch it, hands snatched it out of my great-grandmother's and threw it down onto the sofa.  
  
My mother stood there, seething at the old woman. "Don't you give that foul thing to her! Okami wanted to show her and I never let him! My daughter is not like you freaks!"  
  
There were a few stifled shouts of protests, but my Mother had already grabbed my hand and dragged me into the room where the long wooden box was. I could see Sesshoumaru standing beside it, looking at what was inside. He had laid his hand next to something inside of it, but I was too short to be able to see over the rim to discover what. When my mother marched up to stand beside him, and cleared her throat rudely, he glared at her with a fire that I found myself afraid of.  
  
Then he looked down at me and the fire faded away. He patted my head once more and walked away, his long white hair flowing out behind him.  
  
"Whatever that woman said to you, Aslin," my mother spat, and I was surprised to hear such hatred in her voice. I'd never heard her sound so... mean... before. And she was still glaring at Sesshoumaru's retreating back. "Forget it. Forget every word of it."  
  
"But Daddy's family--" I had begun, but Mom had cut me off:  
  
"Forget it!"  
  
And so I did.  
  
~~~  
  
I awoke with a startled gasp, my heart pattering fit to burst, a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead. I sat ramrod straight, my mouth hanging open.  
  
Kabau whined and I reached out and patted him absently.  
  
Oh my god.  
  
...I knew who I was...  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note:  
  
So there you have it!  
  
Please, also re-read the previous chapter, as I had to do a little bit of fandangling to get the final chapter to coinside with that one. So we're at about 15 of 19, I think. We'll see if any more adds itself as I go.  
  
Once again, thanks to everyone who's reviewed and given me feedback. This is my most popular story so far, in regards to reviews.   
  
Also, does anyone know of Inu Yasha fanfic contests that I might be able to enter?  
  
Again, thanks, and have a great week of holidays, all!  
  
Reviews:  
  
InuyashazFukaiMori: I hope this clears everything up for you. ^_^ And fan art will be LOVED.  
  
Rainy Dimaond12: Way to go! What a close guess!  
  
Pallas Athena1: Updated as per your request. I know this chapter solves a lot of mysteries, but don't forget that there are three left!  
  
Sailor-Armitage: What a great name! I know Kouga is engaged to Ayame - read my authors notes for the previous chapters. I'm glad that you hate Naraku - that means I did a good job.  
  
anime-luvver: I hope that this chapter helps bring all the hints together. Taiyoukai, fox, hanyou, dog, wolf... heh heh heh ...  
  
Skitzoflame: So very close! I think there were even enough "great"s! 


	16. Pride

Spider, Part Sixteen  
  
"Pride "  
  
by Vega  
  
When morning came, Kouga shook the Miko girl Kagome awake and hauled her out of the cave without so much as a 'how are you feeling today?' in my direction. It felt a little bothersome, being shoved down to the position of the second person he thought of every morning.   
  
I was beginning to like the man, you see, for his kind attention. It was nice to be the object of someone's interest without a death threat being suspended over your head. Where Naraku's fascination with me had been creepy, Kouga's was endearing.  
  
All around me the other wolves began to awaken and I could see Ginta giving me looks out of the corner of his eyes, patting down and grooming his funny skunk-like hair. He attempted a weak smile when he caught me looking at him, and I quickly looked away.  
  
Ew. No. My great-great-great-grandfather did NOT have a crush on me.  
  
Kabau whined at me when I looked away, and I could see that he was asking me a question by the tilt of his head. A wagered at it's meaning and answered: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you the whole story, buddy, but I can't be with Ginta. He's destined for someone better."  
  
The wolf looked apprehensive but shook his ruff in a form of a shrug and lay his head back down on his paws.   
  
I watched with captivation as the wolf men around me strapped on their armour, cooked and ate what they could kill in those few hours of morning, and sharpened weapons. My god, it looked like the wolves were preparing for war.   
  
When mohawk-ed Hakkaku came over to hand me a share of the meat and water he said, "Are you comfortable, sister?" When I replied that I was, but I was curious as to what was going on, he answered, "Well, the Kouga-sama took the Miko to find the leader of the Gokurakuchou, and get his Shikon Shards. Word's come back that we're going to have to infiltrate their nesting territory."  
  
"So you're preparing for battle?"  
  
He nodded, then looked over his shoulder at Ginta, who smiled hopefully at me when he caught me looking as well. "He likes you, you know," Hakkaku said, turning his eyes back to mine. "Thinks you're really pretty."  
  
"Huh," is all I said, not sure how to respond.  
  
"Any one of us would be happy to be your mate," Hakkaku insisted, and I stared at him. If he saw the shocked horror that I was sure had to be in my eyes, he ignored it. "Despite your mixed blood. Our numbers are quickly diminishing. We need a good strong female like you."  
  
"...what?"  
  
Hakkaku shook his head. "Don't tell me you're that dense, sister. You seem pretty intelligent for being a girl. The only reason Kouga has let you stay here, the only reason we're expending precious resources on you," here he gestured to indicate the food in my hands, and the pelts I was covered with, "is because we need pups if our tribe is to flourish."  
  
I felt like being sick.  
  
"Ginta offered up his pallet for you, you know," Hakkaku continued, "because he wanted you for himself. Kouga has agreed that he can take you to mate as soon as you are well enough. He said so after laying a claim on the Miko."  
  
I felt my skin crawling, as if trying to get away from the futon of furs that I sat on.  
  
Hakkaku straightened and reached out to pat my head, scratching behind my ears as if I really were a wolf and would enjoy it. It made me feel like he was treating me like an idiot child.  
  
Then he turned and walked away, his tail switching back and forth behind him. He went straight to Ginta and they began to talk.  
  
Not wanting to have any indication as to what they were saying, I turned away and lay down, closing my eyes tightly. I didn't open them when I heard footsteps approaching. I didn't open them when I heard Ginta's voice say, "Sister? Sister... oh, well, ... I guess you're asleep..." I didn't open them when I felt his calloused knuckles brush over the smooth skin of my intact cheek. I didn't open them when I heard the call for the wolf warriors to move out and the pound of their feet on rock, and their howls rending the air.  
  
Only when complete silence descended did I open my eyes.  
  
And then I bent over my knees and began to cry.  
  
~~~  
  
I spent the next few hours reliving the dream of the night before, deliberately clawing for the fading images and emotions, and most of all, the information.  
  
So the dog Hanyou and that Miko girl were destined to marry, as were that poor Sango and the strange attractive man in indigo. And their children's child would marry Shippou. THAT's where I had known the name from.  
  
Shippou.  
  
That squeaky, whiney little red-headed kid was my great-great-great-great-grandfather, and would one day grow up to be the leader of the Kitsune Youkai.  
  
I drank the willow tea that Ginta had left beside me when he had come to check up on me, despite it's being cold, and spent the daylight hours in restless fits of healing repose.  
  
By the time I woke I was more exhausted than when I fell asleep. Perhaps I had been sleeping too much, and that was the problem. But my bruises were mostly gone and the various cuts and gashes were starting to scab over. The broken ribs weren't quite so tender any more and although I no longer had the mirror to look into, I could tell by feel that the swelling and bruising around my eye had gone down as well, although I was sure that the whites of it were still bloody.  
  
My right arm was starting to heal nicely too. The punctures in my upper arm had stopped pussing, which sounds far less gross than it actually was, and the inflamation around them had vanished, which meant no more infection, and YAY, no need to chop the whole limb off. The punctures on my wrist from Naraku's teeth hadn't healed yet, which worried me.  
  
I wondered if I was still somehow connected to the Demon that way, if he someone knew where I was and that I was still alive. Was I endangering the pack just be existing?  
  
I shook my head clear of that thought - no, I couldn't worry about that. If I did, then I would sink into a depression even lower than the funk I was already in.  
  
How exactly was I going to tell Ginta that I couldn't mate with him? Especially since the reason was that I was one of his own kids.  
  
Or, 'pups' as Hakkaku had said.  
  
Maybe I could convince Hakkaku to mate with me instead - surely Ginta would bow to another wolf that I chose? I mean, if it was for the continued existence of the Pack I could...  
  
I could what?   
  
Stay here forever and become part of history?  
  
Have mountains of little furballs for a bunch of men that I felt like a prisoner of? Would they ever let me leave this cave, especially if I was a frail hanoyou who couldn't defend herself, and I was such a precious commodity?  
  
And then what? My mother would be shattered if I vanished. I'm the last person she has left on the face of the Earth. And my great-grandmother said that I somehow had to get this shard out of me and back to the Miko girl Kagome.  
  
No, I couldn't give up.  
  
I had to find a way to get out of here.   
  
I had to find a way to get home.  
  
~~~  
  
It was nightfall before what remained of the tribe came limping back.  
  
I had been left entirely alone, save for Kabau who, as far as I could tell, had spent the day pacing the entrance of the dwelling, on guard. The door to the den was hidden by a vast and noisy waterfall, so when the warriors returned their fur was matted with blood and water and they looked like a pack of drowned, depressed rats.  
  
Worse off of the bunch of them was Kouga.  
  
He was exhausted, I could tell, just from the way he leaned on Ginta. And his right arm was nearly torn apart - I could see a flash of white bone under all the ragged flesh. I made me gag.  
  
They set him down on his pallet and the tribe's healer quickly went to work on their leader, before attending to everyone else. I did a quick mental calculation and discovered that less than half of the tribe had returned unscathed. And it looked like over twenty of them had not returned at all.  
  
And where was the Miko? Kagome was missing.  
  
All of a sudden I heard a great roiling echo cut across the mountains. It was Kagome's voice screaming, "FOOL!"  
  
I winced, just like everyone else in the den, and silently wondered if it was Kouga she was referring to. The rest of the night passed in quiet, punctuated only by the pained whimpers of the injured, or the silent congratulations on the defeat of the enemy.  
  
It took me a while but I finally heard enough to realize that despite their depressed silence, the wolves had won. They were tiptoeing on eggshells, however, because not only had Kouga lost one of his powerful Shikon Shards to Kagome, who was apparently collecting and protecting them, but because Kagome had humiliated him by refusing to allow him to duel with her other suitor for her hand, once the leader of the Gokurakuchou was dead, THEN turned around and told him that she would not, under no uncertain terms, be 'his woman'.  
  
His pride, I gathered, was more bruised than his flesh.  
  
Well, I thought, what did he expect? She already told him that she was in love with Inu Yasha and I knew for a fact, as the living proof of it, that she was meant to be with him. Around midnight, when most of the others were curled on their pallets, lost in battle-worn slumber, Kouga was still awake and licking his wounds.  
  
In the case of his arm, quite literally.  
  
I pulled myself painfully to my feet and stumbled over to him as quietly as I could. I saw the yellow flash of eyes and Kabau watched my progress, and a flash of blue and green as both Hakkaku and Ginta's gaze followed me as well. I ignored them and went straight over to Kouga and without asking permission first, flopped down onto the Prince's pallet.  
  
"Don't do that," I said, and pulled his arm away gently, "You'll open it up and start bleeding."  
  
"Fuck off, woman," he snapped. "I don't need your help."  
  
"Oh, no?" I deliberately dug my nails into the scrape and he yipped in pain. "Shut up and let me bind it for you, you baby."  
  
He glowered but held out his hand and let me apply the ointment that was sitting on the floor nearby and re-bind the wound with the bandages he had torn off earlier to get at it. That finished he sat back against he back wall of the open-faced chamber and intentionally looked away from me. I sighed and pulled myself over to sit beside him.  
  
"I notice that Kagome isn't here," I said softly, trying to disguise the 'I-told-you-so' tone in my voice with kindness. "Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"There's nothing to talk about," he growled back. "She chose to go with that god-dammed half-breed mutt instead of ME, the Prince of the Wolves."  
  
I sighed and shook my head. "I don't think your pedigree has anything to do with it. She loves him, and not you, that's all."  
  
I watched as his fist flexed and tightened. "She can't love him if he's dead."  
  
"Don't go after them." Against my better judgement I let slip a bit of what I had found out in my dream the night before. "They're meant for each other. You should just let it go."  
  
"No! I will not 'let it go'!" he said, and I was reminded of a whiney kindergartener. "It's an insult to my honour and my pack! I have laid claim to that woman and she is MINE."  
  
"Does she WANT to be 'yours', though?" I said gently, and I reached out to put a hand on his knee. He batted it away with an annoyed flick of his tail. "Did she ever actually agree, Kouga?"  
  
He snarled and I thought I saw a pout touch his lips briefly. "No, not really. But I figured that since I was the stronger one, she'd have to say yes."  
  
I shook my head again, suppressing a chuckle.  
  
He turned his head and narrowed those bright blue eyes of his at me.  
  
"Humans aren't like wolves," I said softly. "The alpha male doesn't win the woman. Humans fall in love - they choose their mates by their kindness, their devotion, their dedication. Not by who can beat the shit out of who."  
  
"But..." he started, "I'm a Prince!"  
  
"If I remember correctly," I smiled, "so is Inu Yasha."  
  
Kouga snarled and slammed a fist into the floor between us. "But I LAID CLAIM FIRST."  
  
"Geeze, Kouga," I said, and I could feel the ire growing inside. Alright - no more trying to be delicate with his hurt pride. "What did you expect the Miko to say? 'Why Yes, I think I will be your wife, even though I have no idea who you are and you only want me for what I can do for you, and you even tried to kill my best friends. Let's get married and have a cart load of puppies right now!' " I snorted and shook my head. "You're a right idiot, aren't you?"  
  
The snarl that followed my tirade I'd expected. The hard shove that sent me crashing into the hard rocky cave wall behind me I did not.  
  
"Don't you mock me!" Kouga snarled, and I felt his claws digging into my shoulders.  
  
I said nothing and stared at him, determined to win this battle of wills, wincing only slightly when a few fingers squeezed and my flesh was cut. The sudden smell of my blood must have distracted him, for his eyes slid down my face and neck to his hands. He let go slowly, fingers curling back, until he found the index finger that was stained crimson.  
  
Slowly he brought it to his lips and his soft pink tongue darted out to lap away the substance.   
  
I flinched when he pressed closer to me, nose snuffling at the seepage. He lapped at that, too, and when a panicky whine escape my lips - for I had visions of him either raping me or tearing a huge chunk of my shoulder out - he started and pulled away.  
  
The eyes that looked back into mine were wide, and confused. Thankfully, they were also clear.  
  
"I'm sorry," he muttered before getting up and walking out of the den.  
  
After a few moments of shocked silence, I pulled myself to my feet as well and stumbled back over to my own pallet.   
  
As I passed by Ginta I felt his gaze on the wounds on the back of my shoulder, but did my best to ignore both him and them.  
  
I didn't fall asleep until dawn.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
It's almost sad how this fic now has 80 reviews, my best record ever, and my NaNoWriMo entry "Radu" has less, and "Across Time" has none! *sob*.  
  
Reviews:  
  
Raylee: Glad you're not grounded any more - enjoy the TV. I'm a university student and I have niether the time nor money to have tv! I'm reading that this chapter was confusing to a lot of people, so I'll see what I can do to clear it up.  
  
ellie: Strange enough, this review popped up just as I had finished answering everyone's. Isn't it cool that you were reading just as I was writing? Anyway, glad you enjoyed it - onto chapter 16!  
  
Seb: Tell you?! Aww... come now, after that BIG FAT HINT in chapter 15...?  
  
Sorrow: .... 0__0... Wow. Just.. WOW. Thank you SO MUCH. It means a lot to me that you've taken teh time to study my characters and and let me know that you enjoy them so much. I first strated writing fanfic when I got annoyed with the lack of depth and foresight in the writing I'd found ('cept for Trinsan, Icegaze, Scribe, Ponderosa... a few others... *g* My Heros...). I wanted to create people that were REAL out of people who weren't. I wanted to study waht made them do what they did. That's why I write Fanfic - to figure out people. "Relief" is a strong sentiment to use in refernece to my writing, but I beleive that it is the single most flattering thing anyone has ever said about my work, and I thank you for it. And I do "care for" my babies - my little fan-ficcies and stories. Thank you for noticing. *snicker* If you think I'm being motherly with these ones, wait until my novels come out! Ha! Thank you again for yoru kind words. I hope you enjoy everything else by me that you may read, and give me feedback again on those, as well.  
  
WhiteMagic2: As I just said above, it touches me how much people are enjoying this fanfic. Thank you so much for your kind words.  
  
anime-luvver: Nope, you didn't misunderstand. You got it in one, mate. They ARE one big family! *hands you glue-dissolver* That's kinda messy, I'd imagine... ^_^  
  
Kataionna: Wai! You got it! AS for that family...! My own mother can attest - I spent a good hour or so sitting at my desk with a thick red sharpie and a bristol board scribbling away, trying to create a bloody family tree! On top of that I had to invent names and occupations for everyone. Blarg! But, just because everyone's been so helpful and encouraging, you all can find a copy of it BELOW. ^_~ As for wether she finds him again in the present ... well... we'll see, now won't we?  
  
Pallas Athena: It's all coming together now...  
  
Sailor-armitage: You're welcome. Sleep Sweet!  
  
BaboonRider: *snickersnerk* LOVE THE NAME. Well, if I inspired the story, you absolutely HAVE to let me read it! You rea dthe whole thing in one night, eh? Does your brain hurt yet? ^_^ I'm glad that you're loving it. So far there are no plans to re-introduce Naraku in the fic, but there is still more story to be told, so who knows what may pop into my brain? I've written the last chapter but nothing between this one, 15, and it. So, we'll see where the merry-chase leads me. That's the way it is with all my fics. And sure, feel free to visit everyday - I don't update QUITE that frequently, but I think the story will be finished by the end of the week, maybe a bit more. I try to be regular when I work on a story because a) it usually wants to slither out of my brain all at once anyway and b) I know how annoying it is when people don't update an amazing fic. (glares pointedly at "The Red Hunger" and "Child of the Night".)  
  
Neo-Genesis: It is a bit confusing. It sure confused ME and I WROTE it. Do re-read it, it may help. AS may the chart below. And like I said to Seb, you're asking me where the romance is after my BIG FAT CHAPTER 15 HINT? *sigh* Also, cute kitty. Look, here's Kirby! -- (*-*)  
  
NIGHTSCREAM: Of COURSE it's downright creepy! That's the idea! You know, it started as a nightmare I had, eh? The whole "my right arm is a freakign mess" thing is more or less true, too... I have second degree carpel tunnel syndrome in there and repetative stress syndrome in my right shoulder and elbow. It feels like I've had red-hot spikes driven thru all my joints.... and yet I continue to write. *sigh* operation, here I come... if I don't end up in a sling again first... ^_^ I spent a lot of the second half of my second year at University in a sling (I started usign pretty handkerchiefs after a while, and an Art-Major friend drew me on my canvas one with a sword saying "I may be a gimp but I can STILL KICK YOUR ASS!") and taking notes with my left hand. *groan* I can barely read those ones now... I also like to pay attention to detail in my fics, as you pointed out, as so many ficcers SKIP that sort of thing. It's so important to create a FULL ENVIORMENT for your characters. The sights, the sounds, the texture and scent and taste... more than just "HIs shirt was black, his hahir a dusting curtain of silver" I mean, COME ON! Can't anyone describe things without resorting to CLISHE?! *ahem* There's my rant for the day. Also, I learned to write by reading P.N Elrod, Anne Rice, Niel Gaimon, and Piers Antony. So yes... LOTS OF DETAIL.  
  
sashlea: Who said this was over yet?! After everyone's great input and ideas, at least another two chapters have begun to form in my mind...  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note #2  
  
Okay, I lied. No family tree. I looked at it on ff.n and it looks CRAPPY. So deleted it.   
  
When I post this on my website, I'll add it then, okay? 


	17. Deception

Spider, Part Seventeen  
  
"Deception "   
  
by Vega  
  
Many weeks passed before I was fully healed, and I spent the majority of them in the den. Once or twice I ventured outside to take in the lush waterfall-fed oasis in the middle of this rocky mountain range, but mostly it hurt too much to walk that far.  
  
Other days I just sat on the edge of the entrance to the cave and dangled my feet under the waterfall, watching the wolves and men come and go, trading hellos and crude jokes as they passed. I began to really like my wolvish 'brothers', even though I knew one day I'd have to leave them.  
  
I think the title 'sister' became less of a nick-name and more of a belief as time wore on.  
  
Ginta hung around me more than most, and we formed a nice friendship. I could tell that he kept pressing for more, wanting me to return his affections. Mostly I think because he really did like me, but also because the longer I resisted his advances, the more interested some of the others became.  
  
Kabau appointed himself my chaperone and except when I had to go to the washroom, followed me everywhere. At these times he just lay beside me, shamelessly eliciting belly rubs and scraps of meat that the passing hunters dropped in front of his nose.  
  
Those days that I sat by the waterfall, one of the youkai men dropped a dead bird in my lap, which I suppose he thought was a gift, but only grossed me out. When he walked away, looking smug after I tentatively thanked him, I pushed the bird under Kabau's nose and let him eat it.  
  
He chewed and crunched noisily, tongue lolling to the side in a doggish grin of amusement at my disgust.  
  
Another man gave me the worst looking but well-intentioned bouquet of wildflowers I had ever gotten, and I had to wash them down the river because the goldenrod was making me sneeze.  
  
When Kouga came by me on the way in, he's reach down and pat the top of my head like a master coming home to a dog, which I found actually very soothing. He never really looked at me those times, but I followed him with my eyes when he went by and caught his bright blue eyes flickering back at me once or twice.  
  
For some reason it made the blood rise on my face.  
  
I began to join the pack for meals, sitting with them around one of the three fires - whichever one Kouga was at, if I could help it, for many of the men had wandering eyes and tails - and trading stories and jokes. None of them tried to use my real name, and just called me "sister", which made a little warm fuzzy spot in my tummy.  
  
I managed to convince Kouga to let me go outside to bathe one day, as the greasiness of my hair and fuzziness of my teeth was really starting to bother me, and he only reluctantly agreed. I figured I'd have to do a lot to earn his trust enough for him to allow me an unsupervised chance to escape.  
  
Which, of course, had it's drawbacks, for the more I earned his trust, the more I started to enjoy being around him, and the more guilty I felt for knowing that I was planning to betray him.  
  
After our argument over Kagome that night, neither Kouga nor I spoke her name around the other again, but I knew from the whispers of those around us that he still vanished now and again to go find her and make sure she was alright. Which was, in my mind, equally spooky as it was charming.  
  
I wondered if the Miko knew she had a stalker.  
  
The day Kouga announced me fit enough to mate, I knew the time had come. I had to make a break for it. My ribs were healed and I no longer held any bruises. The cuts and gashes had all healed to the point of no longer needing bandaging, and although some were still tender, there was no danger of them opening again, or of infection.  
  
The particularly nasty gash that Naraku had opened on my chest had shrunk into an angry red welted scar that I resigned to accept would never go away. Ginta, in a moment of trying to lift my sprits, called it a noble mark and proof of my strength.  
  
I thanked him, then shifted away a few bum spaces.  
  
The bite that Naraku had given my right wrist was still unhealed and sometimes, in the dead of night, would begin to bleed. I kept this fact a secret, worried that Kouga would want to chop off that part of my arm or something if he thought it may endanger his pack, and re-bound the wound myself whenever it happened. Kabau understood what was happening, but never tipped off anyone else, as far as I knew.  
  
He was smart for a wolf, and I wondered if he was more than just a simple animal - maybe he was a youkai that preferred wolf-shape? The moment that thought had occurred to me, I was careful with what I said and did around him. He could have been reporting back to Kouga without my knowing it.  
  
My right arm had begun to heal as well, though it was taking a longer time, the elderly medicine wolf said, because I still had the youkai's poisons burning in my veins, and probably would for the rest of my life. The worst of the burns had begun to glisten with the juicy pink overskin of repairing tissue, while the milder ones had already begun to scar in a grotesque spider-webbing pattern.  
  
I could move my right hand freely now, clenching and unclenching fists and wriggling my fingers. It would be a while before the atrophied muscles were strong enough again to actually allow me to hold or pick something up, but I was working on it. I made a point of balling my hand into a fist as many times a day as possible, trying to get the mobility back.  
  
Damned if I would let that youkai bastard cripple me.  
  
When Kouga inspected my body, eyes dispassionately and clinically sweeping my nude form, and decided that I was fit enough to have a mate and bear pups, I begged him not to tell anyone yet and pulled him aside.  
  
Most of the Pack, thankfully, was outside enjoying the warm summer's day, and my audience consisted of only Kouga and the medicine-wolf. The latter of which dismissed himself and walked outside, probably to inform everyone of my condition. I could imagine the line ups that might have started already.  
  
"Please, Kouga," I begged, and pressed my hands to his chest armour even as he helped me shrug my worn and dirty kimono back on, "I don't want a mate!"  
  
His eyes dart up to mine and I saw the surprise and the mild hurt that was in them - I had betrayed his hospitality by my refusal and we both knew it. After a moment of studying my face, he deigned to ignore my utterance and re-adjusted the lapels of my robe before tying the waistband shut for me. "We'll make you a better skirt out of the next rabbit pelt," he said, and I could hear the strain in his voice, "And I'll have some torso armour made as well. We can line that with fur, it'll be more comfortable."  
  
"Kouga," I whined, "Please, I'm not ready to be a mother."  
  
His eyes narrowed and for a moment, electric fire danced in their depths. His hands closed over my shoulders, and none to gently at that. "You are of an age. Your body is ready to bear pups - I could smell the moon-blood last week. We all could."  
  
"But!" I cried, feeling like we were arguing in circles, "I'm not prepared mentally, I mean!"  
  
"You'll have the six months before your pups are born to adjust. I have already promised Ginta."  
  
I shook my head and felt the tears squeezing out to cling to my eyelashes. "I don't WANT Ginta!"  
  
Kouga tucked a finger under my chin and used it to bring my face up to his. "I'm the alpha male - you'll do as I say."  
  
When I heard Ginta's joyful voice calling "Sister!" from the other side of the waterfall, the splashing that indicated that he'd jumped through the water and was now coming towards us, my heart jumped into my throat and I got desperate.  
  
In that brief second, I had decided, and gambled with my life.  
  
I took advantage of our proximity and threw my arms around Kouga's neck and slid my body up against his. Desperately, I pressed my lips against his own. His gasp of shock allowed me to slip my tongue in and deepen the kiss.  
  
I heard Ginta's yelp, then his footsteps retreating as if someone had just struck him on the muzzle with a rolled up newspaper. My heart wrenched in sorrow.  
  
'I'm sorry, brother,' I thought, 'but I have to. You'll understand later.'  
  
When Kouga gathered his wits enough to shove me off of him, I hung my head and let the tears slip down my cheeks, unchecked. "I'm sorry, Kouga," I whispered, "I didn't mean to hurt you by--"  
  
The rest of my sentence was cut off when Kouga swept me back up into his embrace and kissed me soundly, my gasp of shock allowing his tongue entrance this time. I didn't know what to think – did this mean that Kouga actually felt something for me?  
  
But I thought he loved the Miko girl!  
  
I had kissed him to prevent Ginta for asking for me to be his mate... and it looked like my plan had worked. A little too well. Now I was obligated to go along with my deception and let Kouga do whatever he wanted, let him think it was actually HIM I wanted, or I could push him off me right now, confess everything, and probably get killed for my insolence.  
  
Swallowing my tears, I kissed him back.  
  
~~~  
  
The kiss only ended when the intense pain in my right wrist flared to life. I yanked my head away from Kouga and screamed, clutching at the wound and crumbling to the floor.  
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, worry all over his face and voice. Reluctantly I allowed him to peel back the bandage and his eyes widened as he saw that the bite was bleeding.  
  
"It... it's burning..." I said, my own voice constricted with tears. "I think it means he's killing..."  
  
Kouga's voice burned with possessiveness. "He? What 'he'?"  
  
"The man who... who beat me... Naraku."  
  
"Naraku," Kouga repeated in a growling voice. "Again Naraku."  
  
I looked up, one hand still clenched around my throbbing wrist. "Again?"  
  
"Kagome and the mutt-face have mentioned that they are hunting him, and this morning I was summoned to the Northern Tribe's den to discuss the threat of his existence with their pack-leader."  
  
I nodded, biting my lip. "He's bad news, Kouga. You'll have to be careful."  
  
He smiled, mistaking my concern for the pack as concern for the one he thought I loved. "We'll kill him, no problem," he gloated, and held up his own right arm for me to see. Where the scar from the Gokurakuchou fight had been the skin was now whole and a small glint of magenta shone through his skin. "I found another shard today - I will be strong and fast and I'll kill the bastard before he even sees me coming." His grin spread. "And then I'll track down that mutt-face and kill him to, and take Kagome for myself."  
  
I sat back slowly, unsure what this news meant.  
  
"I'm sorry, sister," he said softly, and patted my head as Hakkaku had once done - condescendingly. "I really do like you - you're strong and smart and brave enough to stand up to me, and you taste really really good... but Kagome can sense the Shikon Shards. As much as I'd like to make you my mate, I need her, too. And I can give you to one of the others."  
  
I pulled away, glaring at him, and staggered to my feet, holding my right arm. "She'll never love you, you know," I hissed. Though why I was being so mean I didn't know. Kouga didn't want me, which was a real blow to the ego, even though I didn't want him. Hadn't my plan worked out perfectly? Ginta would never want me because he thought I was with Kouga, and Kouga didn't want me because I wasn't Kagome. I was safe. And yet... "It's true."  
  
Hurt flashed across the Wolf Prince's face and I plowed on. "I'm from the future, Kouga!" I snapped, and he staggered back a step from the shock of the news. "That's why I was attacked by Naraku! That's why I needed to hide here. That's why I can't be Ginta's mate, and you'll never be Kagome's. I'm from the future and I KNOW that you won't have her. She'll marry Inu Yasha and bear HIS pups."  
  
"You... you're lying..." Kouga whispered, his lips gone white. But in his eyes I could see that he believed me. He had to - I had never lied to him before.  
  
"I am not," I said softly, "and you know it."  
  
"...but... HOW..." he whined and his tail actually tucked between his legs.  
  
"I am their descendant." I looked at my feet, and then pressed one hand over my abdomen, where the tiny piece of Shikon no Tama still rested. Then I brought my eyes back up to meet his. "I am the result of their progeny. That's where my mixed youkai blood comes from, the Inu Taiyoukai, the Kitsune Youkai... Kouga, I can't mate with Ginta because he is my grandfather, three times over. I come from very far in the future – five hundred years, at least. Nine generations, for certain."  
  
He was still backing away, shaking his head. "No. I don't believe you. I won't loose to that mutt face!"  
  
"Forget your fucking PRIDE! She doesn't LOVE YOU," I screamed suddenly, surprising both of us. Silence descended, thick and cold. When I spoke again my voice was a harsh and hurt whisper. "She doesn't love you."  
  
Kouga's mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out. Finally, he managed to force out, "... do you?"  
  
"I... beg your pardon?"  
  
There was a long pause, and then he said, "Do you love me? Is that... is that why you kissed me?"  
  
"I... I don't know." The confession caught me off guard. Did I love Kouga? Well, I certainly owed him for everything he had done for me, and he treated me a damn slight better than my previous host had. And he was handsome, there was no doubt about that. And strong. And willing to do whatever it took to protect he cared about. And annoying as it was, his refusal to give up on Kagome was sort of appealing.  
  
But did that mean I love him?  
  
I liked it when he talked to only me. My skin tingled whenever he touched me. The food he brought me always seemed to taste better than anyone else's. And I was desperately lonely whenever he wasn't around.  
  
"You don't know?" Kouga repeated, his eyes narrowing into unimpressed slits.  
  
"I... maybe."  
  
"Maybe?" he snorted, and I could tell he was getting angry.  
  
"Kouga, I--"  
  
"Shut-up," he snarled. "I don't want to hear it. This foolishness has already made me late to the meeting in the Northern Tribe's Lands. I'll..." he paused and looked me up and down, "I'll deal with this problem later."  
  
With that he spun on his heel, his pony tail whipping out behind him, and stalked through the waterfall and out of the den.  
  
I didn't know how to respond, so said nothing at all.  
  
I spent the rest of the day in the corner, and not on the pallet Ginta had given me. It felt wrong. I didn't look at anyone or talk to anyone, and when they all left at sunset, I never even wished them good luck.  
  
I wish I had.   
  
They were going to try to ambush Naraku, you see, and that would be the last time I ever saw most of them alive  
  
The next morning Kouga, Ginta, and Hakkaku limped back into the den, Kabau and two other wolves behind them.  
  
No others had survived.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's notes:  
  
Not much to say today. I finished two chapters in a few hours and my arm is killing me tryign to keep up with my brain. But I'm going back to my apartment tomorrow morning and I really want to try to finish this story before I do. That way I don't have the unfinished parts on my parent's computer.  
  
That's why there aren't a lot of reviews replied to today - The other chapter has only been posted for a few hours. ^_^  
  
Reviews:  
  
Rainy Diamond12 : Yes, you were close! Congradulations! 


	18. Truth

Spider, Part Eighteen  
  
"Truth "  
  
by Vega  
  
It took a long time for the wolves to want to speak.  
  
Hakkaku came into the den a curled himself around one of the wolves and cried into the creature's blood-soaked ruff, trying to muffle his sobs, to hide them. Ginta had tears standing in his eyes but never shed them. He just went to his pallet, formally mine, and leaned back against the rock surface and stared at the ceiling.  
  
Kabau limped over to me where I had been sitting by the fire alone, holding one paw up to his chest, and I noticed with a gasp of horror that his tail as crooked and one ear was torn in half. Immediately I whipped my sash off and bound it over his head, looking like a ridiculous bonnet, but stanching the bleeding.   
  
Then I found two strong and straight bones in the pile of throw-aways from meals, apologized, then yanked his tail straight and bound it between the bones in a heavy but working sling. He licked the side of my face and slunk away into a corner to tend to the rest of his scrapes.  
  
Kouga looked the worst and I immediately went to his side. He had staggered in and dropped onto his pile of furs, white as a sheet, dark smudges under his eyes, dried blood and tears on his face. He lay, face down, tail tucked between his dirty legs, left hand under his forehead, right hand sprawled out, and bloody.  
  
I stood, grabbed an empty pitcher in my left hand from the fire-side, went to the waterfall and filled it, then brought it back to Kouga's side with the cleanest rag I could find on the way. I knelt beside him, rinsing the rag in the water first, and re-adjusting my now-tie-less kimono to sit closed, then touched it to the bloody patch on his right arm.  
  
His Shikon Shard had been torn out, I saw. Again.  
  
And he looked ghastly.  
  
At the touch of the wet and cold cloth, Kouga jumped and lifted his face to me. "Let me die," he hissed, and his voice was no more than a harsh exhalation of breath. "I've failed my pack."  
  
I pulled the cloth back and dipped it into the water, watching the blood patterns blossom on the surface of the pitcher's contents. "What happened?"   
  
It was Ginta's voice that pierced the thick darkness, and not Kouga's.  
  
"It was a trap," he said, his voice strangely hollow. "Naraku knew we were coming. That goddamned mutt-faced hanyou set us up!"  
  
"No!" I whispered, continuing to clean Kouga's wound. "He hates Naraku! I've seen them fighting!"  
  
Kouga pulled himself back onto his knees slowly, and I could see by the expression on his face that every muscle was screaming in protest. Then he reached out and set a heavy hand on my shoulder, deliberately close to my neck. If he'd had the strength, I think it may have been wrapped around my throat instead of just resting beside it.  
  
"What do you mean, you've SEEN them fighting. I thought Naraku just stole your earring." I tried to pull back, to escape his hate-filled glare, but Kouga held me fast. When I hesitated, he gave me a small shake. "Answer!"  
  
"I..." I licked my lips, nervous, and felt three yellow, one green, and two blue pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head. "I'm so sorry, Kouga... I'm so sorry..." I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks and over his hand, but still he did not let go. His grip shifted upwards and this time he did wrap his long fingers around my neck.  
  
"Did you know about this?" he snarled, his weight resting heavily on his torn up arm. "Are you some sort of SPY!?"  
  
"No, no!" I cried, " I swear it! What I told you was true, Kouga! I am from the future... but I lied to you about Naraku." I paused as a heavy sob racked my chest, and I collapsed against him. Kouga let go and wrapped his arms around me, resting his hands on my back. But his posture was stiff. He was distancing himself.  
  
I heard Ginta and Hakkaku whispering behind us, and caught only a few of the words:  
  
"...future..."  
  
"... going on...?  
  
"...set us up...?"  
  
"I didn't set you up!" I screamed, tears flowing like a river. "I'm not a spy, I swear it! I'm so sorry!"  
  
"What do you mean, you lied about Naraku?" I felt Kouga's chest rumble, the warmth of his body, of the lap I was lying in, but his voice... his voice was like ice.  
  
"I wasn't mugged by him." I took a deep breath, the air making me cough, and they waited me out. "For three weeks, maybe more, I... I w-was his prisoner."  
  
"Why?" The question held no concern. Only demand.  
  
My breath hitched again, and I felt so guilty, so god-damned guilty...  
  
"I had a Shikon Shard...i-inside... m-my... my body. I spied on him, fighting Inu Yasha and his friends," I closed my eyes, but forced myself to continue, even as I felt Kouga's hands spasm on my shoulder blades. "I-in a place he couldn't ... f-find. He held me... tortured me in my sleep... h-he got into my... my dreams, even... t-touched me... wanted to know how I... I got here... I'm so sorry..."  
  
Kouga's posture softened and he reached up with his good hand and pulled me upright to meet my eyes. He looked like he'd had the fever, and had been sick for weeks. No, scratch that, he looked like he was dead.  
  
"K-kouga...!" I hitched and tried to touch his face, "What did he do to you...?  
  
"Never mind me," he snapped, and shrugged off my touch. "What happened? Did Naraku find the shard?"  
  
I nodded, fresh tears spilling.   
  
For weeks I had blocked those memories from my mind. Every night I shied away from the nightmares that his touch induced, hid my wounded wrist, soothed Kabau when he nosed close to me to cease my sobs.  
  
Every day I had smiled and played along, trying so hard, so damned hard, to forget what he had done to me... but sometimes, I would move and twinge something, or I'd start to ache, and all the memories, the horrible, terrifying memories of his touch, his hot breath on my thigh, his dusty drugged kisses, they would come back and threaten to drown me and I would scream but no one would hear it and I would start to shake and shiver and sweat so badly that it feels like I'd never stop, I'd never stop, I'd never...  
  
"Stop, stop!" Kouga was screaming, shaking me hard. I suddenly came back to myself and realized that I had been shaking and screaming, leaking all over Kouga - and my wrist was bleeding again, too.  
  
I stopped and he lifted my wrist to his mouth and I thought he was going lap up the blood, but instead he sniffed it.   
  
"It reeks of poison," he whispered. "I just couldn't tell before. Naraku bit you, didn't he?"  
  
"Y-yes. In a dream, and for real."  
  
There was a pause as he took the wet rag I'd been using to clean his wounds and pressed it down on mine. Then Kouga asked, "Did he get the shard?"  
  
"Half of it," I whispered. "There was an earring he gave me, to control me with, and that's what t-tore my ear."  
  
"And where's the other half of the shard...?"  
  
I looked meaningfully at my stomach, and it took a while for Kouga to clue in, but when he did he went even paler than he had been.   
  
"W-what!?" he shouted, startled, "In THERE?!"  
  
I nodded again.  
  
"How the HELL did he get... it... out...?" It suddenly dawned on Kouga, and he swore under his breath, and pulled me right against him. "No wonder you're crying. Oh, god, I'm sorry..."  
  
"I think he went after you," I whispered, "because he knows. He must know that I lived when he dumped me... he must be after the last half of it..."  
  
"I won't let him get you," Kouga snarled, and his anger was suddenly a vibrant, living thing. "I'll kill that sonofabitch for our Pack, and for you. And then I'll get that goddamned hanyou!"  
  
I nodded against his chest, sniffling.  
  
I was thankful for his safe embrace... but how would I convince him that Inu Yasha would never work with Naraku? And then it came to me.  
  
"Naraku o ou Mono," I said.  
  
"What?" asked Hakkau, and I looked up to see that he and Ginta and the wolves had crept closer until they were within arm's reach.  
  
"Naraku o ou Mono," I repeated. "I told you I was from the future - I'm descended from Sango, the woman with the boomerang who fights with Inu Yasha. I appeared in her village when Naraku attacked it because I dreamed about the attack. I ... wanted to help them. And the Shikon no Tama piece that had been born inside me made it happen because ... because according to history, I'm meant to go back and give it to the Miko, Kagome, so she can defeat Naraku. Sango, Inu Yasha, Kagome, the monk, Miroku, and the fox kit that you almost killed, Shippou... I'm the progeny of each of them. And they're known in my time as the 'Naraku o ou Mono', those who pursue Naraku. So Inu Yasha can't possibly have worked WITH Naraku!"  
  
Gita blinked, stunned. Hakkaku's mouth worked like a gapping fish. Kouga took all this in with a knife-slice mouth and narrowed eyes.  
  
"I'll give that you are from the future, PERHAPS," he finally said, "but I will have the truth from the Hanoyu bastard myself. For now..." His baleful gaze swept the den. "We'll sleep and recover. Then will track down that Naraku and twist his head around the wrong way."  
  
~~~  
  
"Sister? Sister?"  
  
I blinked awake and looked over Kouga's sleeping form at Ginta on his own pallet on the floor.  
  
"Is it true?" Ginta whispered, over the heads of those sleeping around us. I nodded. "Oh. Is that why... Kouga said that you... didn't want to be my ... mate...it's because you're from the future...?"  
  
I shook my head 'no' and he cocked his, puzzled.  
  
"It's because you're my great-great-great-grandfather," I whispered back and he let out a little yelp of surprise.  
  
Then I lay back down and closed my eyes, a smile playing at the corner of my lips.  
  
~~~  
  
Sandalwood.  
  
I could smell it.  
  
It was cloying in it's heaviness, and made my stomach roil. It made me ache in places deep inside me, hurting, ripping up phantom pain.  
  
I tried to scream, but cotton, dry and thick, filled my mouth.   
  
I heard a chuckle.  
  
I whipped around, my joints feeling filled with ball bearing lead weights. I saw a flash of silver in the shadows... a death's head mask...  
  
A sliver of light...  
  
"You think I killed them because of you...?"  
  
"I HATE YOU!" I screamed back, "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!"  
  
"You think I don't know there's a piece left...?"  
  
I fell to my knees on the groundless floor, hands wrapped over my abdomen. "You can't have it!"  
  
"How do you think I've kept track of you...?"  
  
"FUCK OFF!"  
  
"Do you think the Miko sensed it when that wolf had three? I made sure she didn't. I want you back, girl."  
  
"Then..." I sobbed... "Then why did you let me go?"  
  
"Who said I let you go...?"  
  
I looked up, around, but I couldn't see him.  
  
"I needed a spy, girl... someone to evaluate the Ookami tribes... and you dropped out of the sky for me, perfect, ready..."  
  
"No!" I wailed, "no, no!"  
  
"Yes. And now that they are crushed, I will have your shard..."  
  
I pulled myself to my feet, ignoring the burning in my wrist, on my forearm, between my legs...  
  
"The Fuck you will!" I snarled, "Come and get it then, you sonofabitch! I'll claw your eyes out myself! The legends say I deliver this thing safely to the Miko and goddammit, if I have to tear you into shreds myself YOU WILL NOT STOP ME!"  
  
The room around began to dissolve, as if acid was eating it away, in spots and splotches. His laughter began to fade away too, eaten, destroyed.  
  
And I was left standing in black.  
  
The sandalwood smell gone.  
  
I had beaten him away.  
  
Fire flared up suddenly on my wrist and I screamed. Flames leapt up my arm, sizzling, destroying, consuming. The hot breeze of the flames wafted over my face and chest, singing my hair and resting on my throat.  
  
I screamed.  
  
~~~  
  
I was awoken by Kouga's hot breath on my neck.  
  
I bolted upright, bashing my nose on his muscular shoulder.  
  
"It was just a dream!" he was saying, "Stop screaming, it was just a dream."  
  
"My wrist," I panted, "fire!"  
  
He grabbed both of my hands between his good one and I realized that he was straddled over me, his knees on either side of my hips. "You're not on fire," he whispered soothingly, rubbing his other thumb across my forehead, his hands buried soothingly in my hair. "You're okay. You're here... with me."  
  
"Oh, Kouga!" I cried and threw myself up at him. I felt his grimace of pain but he sat back on my legs and held me back. "He was using me - he was seeing through me... the whole time."  
  
He breathed into my hair for a moment, "We were both used." I felt his lips press against my temple in a soothing gesture. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the softness and warmth. "It's not your fault."  
  
"But the shard! The bites!"  
  
Kouga peeled away from me, somewhat reluctantly I felt ,and looked at my wrist. We were both shocked to see that it was completely gone - not even a scar remained behind.  
  
"Does that mean he's gone?" Kouga whispered.  
  
"I don't... I don't know... I just... I just dreamed him... he said... he wants the shard..."  
  
"He was just in your dream...?" Kouga sounded awed, and slightly scared.  
  
"M-hmm..." I nodded, "Kouga... he knows where we are..."  
  
"Then we'll leave!" he sprang to his feet, hauling me up. "I'll wake the others, we'll run, we'll get outta here and regroup and--" he swayed on his feet and I managed to catch him just before he fell. I lowered us slowly to the pelts and petted his head, making soft soothing sounds.  
  
"You're still hurt, and sick. We can't move yet..." Kouga shivered in my embrace and rubbed his cheek into my thigh like a whimpering puppy. "Kouga, what's wrong with you?"  
  
"I was... I was poisoned..." he said, his voice rough with hurt and suppressed anger and sorrow. "The Shikon Shard I found... it was tainted. It was a trap... I couldn't get to the palace on time... couldn't get it out... I couldn't help them..." he sniffed, "I failed them..."  
  
"No, no," I said, "no, you were used. WE were used..."  
  
He sat up and stared me in the face. "You're too intelligent for my own good..."  
  
"They're your words."  
  
He smiled slightly. "I know."  
  
His hands came up, brushing lightly over my shoulders and neck to hold the sides of my head. He shifted forward and I felt the hot press of his thighs on the outside of mine. Fur brushed my arm and I looked down to see his tail resting there. That's when I noticed that Kouga was wearing nothing. No armour, no kilt, no leg bands, nothing.  
  
Kouga, Prince of the Wolf Youkai, slept in the nude.  
  
"Kouga, what are you...?"  
  
"Shhh..." his eyes roamed over my face. "Don't talk any more."  
  
"But Kouga, there's other things I need to tell you--"  
  
He surged forward and kissed me suddenly. It was hot and passionate and filled with desperation. Desperate to forget, desperate to be forgiven, desperate to just be held.  
  
When I kissed him back, I'm sure my kiss felt the same.  
  
And before I knew what had happened, his hand was sliding into the loose folds of my robe, and mine was smoothing back his bangs, and for a brief flash of time, everything was okay in the world...  
  
~~~  
  
I dreamt of home.  
  
Of my mother, worried sick about me. Of my great-grandmother, wherever she was. Of my Uncle Sesshoumaru and his strange white hair and tattoos.  
  
I dreamt of my father, the healthy, happy man he was before my fourth birthday, before the cancer strangled him in his sleep.  
  
I dreamt of school and homework and the dog Mom and I had when I was seven.  
  
I dreamt about the time I was teased for being a half-breed; for being Japanese-American. Half-breed indeed.  
  
I dreamt about all the times I had smelled things that no one else in school had smelled, seen things, felt things that no one else could feel, sensed things... and they suddenly all made sense.  
  
I dreamt about the kid's life I'd saved while working at summer camp because I could smell the peanut butter on the little girl's jumper.  
  
And I cried in my sleep, holding Kouga tight.  
  
And I wanted to go home.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's notes:  
  
I love how I make it sound like I planned to do this all along...  
  
Reviews:  
  
I posted too fast! No reviews here! 


	19. Disorientation

Spider, Part Nineteen  
  
"Disorientation "   
  
by Vega  
  
When I awoke, it was cold.  
  
I reached out to Kouga, wanting the warmth of his body, but felt nothing but gravelly stone.   
  
I sat up slowly, stiff and chattering. I managed to pry my eyes open.  
  
The cave was empty. The furs gone, the fires out, and daylight streaming in, grey and cool.  
  
I got to my feet and pulled myself along the wall. I tripped over the pile of bones, blinded by the harsh sunlight that was cutting into the cave on an angle. I watched in horror as the bones crumbled to dust under my bare feet.  
  
Silence fell, and my ears twitched.  
  
Something was wrong.  
  
Why was it so quiet? And so bright?  
  
I looked up - the waterfall was gone.  
  
It's absence was eerie and made my flesh crawl.  
  
"Kouga?" I called out, and nothing but my own voice echoed back at me answered. "Kouga!"  
  
I looked around wildly and saw no evidence that this cave had ever been occupied by the wolf tribe at all, except for the bones I had just banged into. Not even carbon stains where the three fires used to be.  
  
"KOUGA!" I screamed, wrapping my arms around myself and falling to my knees.   
  
My face started to grow hot, and felt my right arm start to throb. I looked at the wounds and saw that while I had slept I had rubbed the burn scars and scabs off... they had puffed up during the night, infection seeping out of the punctures...  
  
"No, god, no..." I whispered as sweat popped out on my brow. "KOUGA...!"  
  
"I heard a voice!" I heard another voice call out, somewhere outside of the cave. It was too high to be Naraku's, too low for Kohaku... none that I recognized.  
  
"A voice? All the way up here?" answered another. "Why would someone be hiking up here?"  
  
"Well, we are, aren't we?"  
  
"Hello!?" I called out, the walls and floor trying to swim away from me. "Hello!?"  
  
"In here!" the first voice called and I shaded my eyes as someone came into the cave's entrance. I looked up, expecting the rough kimono of a peasant farmer, maybe some straw sandals and a basket strapped to his back with canvas sashes.  
  
Instead I saw a man in khakis and hiking boots, with a flak jacket and toque, an a thick-strapped hiking backpack. His gloves had the fingers cut off.  
  
"I've been... hurt..." I whispered, reaching out to him, "... please..."  
  
"Get in here!" the man screamed to his unseen hiking partner, "Take my cell! Call 911!"  
  
I felt him grab my shoulders, his warm grip so like that of Kouga.  
  
"Kouga, where's Kouga...?" I whispered, but the room was already starting to go black, spots of light dancing around, lookign like the silver hair of a hanyou, the white cloak of a demon, the bright blue eyes of a wolf prince.  
  
"Check to see if there's another one around!" The man who held me said. "He's called Kouga!"  
  
"I don't see anyone else."  
  
"Kid, what's your name? Kid? Hey kid! Hey, don't pass out on me! KID!"  
  
I think the last thing I whispered was Kouga's name, before the darkness swallowed me whole. 


	20. Silver

Spider, Part Twenty  
  
"Silver "  
  
by Vega  
  
Spider webs of silver scrawled through my brain.  
  
The Hanyou had white hair.  
  
Uncle Sesshoumaru...?   
  
Someone else.  
  
Silver in his eyes as he made love to me.  
  
His silver cloak as he tore me apart from the inside.  
  
A man in a white mask, holding a silver thread and needle.   
  
A clean silver table, gleaming like metal.  
  
A rusted silver sword, thrown from a wall into a courtyard.  
  
The silver of his torso armour.  
  
The silver scars crisscrossing my right arm.  
  
The silver of the lamps above me.  
  
Silver railing on the hospital bed.  
  
Silver whine of the ambulance sirens.  
  
The silver whirring of the helicopter blades.  
  
Silver threads in red hair. Wound in twin hair buns.  
  
Silver hair.  
  
Oh, god, make him go away, silver hair...  
  
Silver hair over strange tattoos?  
  
Someone is speaking to me in silver tones.  
  
"Aslin, can you hear me...?" I think I nod, but there's light shining in my eyes and it hurts.  
  
"Aslin, your great-grandmother is here."  
  
I try to clear my throat. "Uncle...?"   
  
"Yes, it's me. We're taking care of you - no expense spared, dear. The plastic surgeons will arrive tomorrow."  
  
"Shard... out..."  
  
"There was internal tearing ... the doctors got it out when they stitched you up."  
  
"Kouga..."  
  
"I'll call him."  
  
"Uncle..." I held out my hand, and I thought I could feel him taking it.  
  
My blood felt like cold quicksilver in my veins.  
  
The next time I awoke there was a kindly woman with red hair and two buns on the top of her head talking in the doorway with a rash shouter with a black ponytail. 


	21. Phonecall

Spider, Part Twenty-One  
  
"Phonecall"  
  
by Vega  
  
The phone rang three times before she picked up.  
  
I had been chewing on my fingernails nervously as the different beeps and silences indicated the overseas dialling was occurring, and I had waited three rings before she answered, a scream building in my throat.  
  
And now that she said "Hello," I was speechless.  
  
He poked my arm gently and I jumped and said, "Hello. Mom...?"  
  
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then she took a deep shaky breath. "Oh my god... Aislin...?"  
  
"Yeah Mom. I'm okay. I'm..." I looked up at him, and his blue eyes shone back at me with confidence. "I'm in a hospital - but I'm okay."  
  
"My god, where are you honey!? I've been going crazy! You just VANISHED and I called the police, but they couldn't do a thing, and you've been gone for three months and how could you DO this to ME!?"  
  
"I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine! I'm in Tokyo..."  
  
There was another pregnant pause. "Tokyo?"  
  
"Yeah, Mom. I'm in Japan. But it's all okay."  
  
"It was those freaky relatives for your father's, wasn't it!? What did they DO to you, sweetheart, are you alright!?"  
  
"I'm FINE, Mom. And my relatives are NOT freaky!" I flashed a glare around the room, intended for my mother, it caught the eyes of a tall man with silver hair, and a an elderly lady with red. They both smiled. "They found me and took CARE of me when I was hurt!"  
  
"You're HURT?!"  
  
"It's okay - I told you, I'm in the hospital."  
  
"But what happened, how did you ... where did you GO!?"  
  
"Listen, I have to go now, Mom."  
  
"Don't you hang up on ME, Aislin Volpe!"  
  
"Uncle Sesshoumaru called the police, Mom. They'll be there to let you know how to get here, give you my statement, okay? His driver will be waiting for you when you're done, and the plane is ready too."  
  
"Plane, Aislin, what the Hell's going on!"  
  
Heh - Hell indeed.  
  
"Bye Mom. I'll see you in two days."  
  
"AISL--"  
  
The click of the phone being hung up was almost deafening.  
  
I turned into his chest, into his warm arms, and felt his hand sink into my hair. "It's okay, Sister, it's okay."  
  
"She'll never understand."  
  
"We'll make her understand, Sister. We'll show her we're not monsters."  
  
I cried myself to sleep in his arms.  
  
~~~  
  
We spoke at length, he and I, when I awoke. The others, who had crowded the hospital after they had learned that I had been the one to travel, and had returned, were sent to their homes. I had to promise several of them visits before they would give us space.  
  
Even my uncle and great-grandmother left us in peace, which they had not done since I had arrived in hospital three months earlier.  
  
"When I woke up and you were gone," he was saying, his chin resting on my head as I snuggled into his lap. "I thought Naraku had taken you. But then Kagome told me she'd seen you again... here... now... and ... and I did what you told me to do, Sister."  
  
"What did I say?" I smiled and cuddled into his embrace.  
  
" ' Forget your fucking pride', and 'just give it up'."  
  
"Did I really say that?"  
  
"Yes. And I did. I gave up on Kagome. And I decided to wait, instead."  
  
"What for what?"  
  
He kissed me, and smiled smugly.  
  
"Ah. Smart Wolf." 


	22. Shikon Shard

Spider, Part Twenty-Two  
  
"Shikon Shard"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
Eleven Months Later  
  
~~~  
  
I stood still, watching the young people go in and out of the fenced-off courtyard, dark hair flying in all directions, green skirts caught in the wind, smiles plastered on faces. The colours were tinted slightly violet, as I was peering through delicate purple shades so as to hide my vibrant blue eyes from the sea of dark ones around me.  
  
How happy the people on the other side of the street seemed. Why wouldn't they be? School just let out for the weekend.  
  
I flexed the fingers of my right hand briefly, feeling the new skin there ache dully in protest. In time it would cease to hurt when I moved, the doctors had said. In time, the surgically grafted skin would become more pliant, ease into the shape of my eviscerated appendage, mould itself around the withered tissue and grow slightly to make up for the pieces that were missing.  
  
It felt damn good to just be out of those bandages. I kept my sleeves long at all times now, to hide the scars, the cobwebby looking crisscrossing veins and stitches that kept my new skin in place. It scared people when they looked at it. Truth be told, it scared me too.  
  
Ah, what a miracle modern science is.  
  
And I felt damn lucky to have lived long enough to take advantage of it.  
  
The breeze shifted directions and my musings would have continued along the same vein, had I not spotted my quarry. She was smiling too, strolling out of the courtyard and onto the sidewalk, one hand wrapped around the shoulder strap of her knapsack. She was surrounded by other girls in the same uniform, the same age.  
  
I shoved my marred right hand into my pants pocket, pulling my sleeve low to hide the markings.  
  
Crossing the street quickly to keep up with her, I followed at a small distance as her and her group of friends walked down the street. Yes - this was her. I remembered the school uniform, had spent months trying to track down which school it was from, and then days watching the outside of said school.  
  
And here she was.  
  
We walked for maybe twenty minutes before her friends parted ways, and I had this girl to myself. As she turned into a park to take a short cut, I glanced around to make sure no one was following ME, and said, in a loud enough voice for her to hear me:  
  
"Miko-sama."  
  
The girl froze on the spot and turned to look behind her, finding me, with wary disbelief in her eyes. Beautiful blue-grey eyes, I mused. No wonder that Hanyou falls for her. Her hair was long and dark, her skin radiant and fresh. She was lovely in every sense of the word.  
  
And this was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.  
  
I wondered if I had inherited any physical traits from her at all, or if time and other people's blood had diluted my genetics enough to posses little more than the brilliant shimmer of a Youkai's eyes, and a Shikon Shard.  
  
It felt almost surreal to be looking at her and knowing that 500 years ago she... we... I shook my head slightly to clear it of these thoughts. No, if I didn't hurry up and explain myself, I'd probably get a purifying arrow right through the heart.  
  
"Miko-sama," I said again, this time more quietly. She took a few steps forward, towards me, understandably hesitant.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowed, her head cocked to the side.  
  
I smiled, pleased to be able to understand her without the aid of any supernatural objects. My months in this country's various hospitals had not been spent in vain. "My name is Aslin," I said softly.  
  
"Have we met before?"   
  
I looked down at my feet, amused. "Do I seem familiar to you? I should, Miko-sama. I am the culmination of your love."  
  
"My... love?"  
  
I sighed and looked up at the trees to our left, allowing myself to be momentarily distracted by the meditative whisper of the rustling leaves and the faint twittering of the birds. "Five hundred years ago," I began, and I heard her footsteps get closer, "Five hundred years ago you are friends with a Hanyou. His name is Inu Yasha."  
  
She gasped and came around too look me in the eye. "How do you know about that?!"  
  
I smiled a third time, pressing forward despite her question. "You are also friends with a Houshin named Miroku, a Taiyjia named Sango, and a Kitsune Youkai named Shippou."  
  
She froze and just stared at me, her eyes and mouth wide with shock.  
  
I reached into my coat pocket and produced a shimmering magenta shard of crystal and held it up for her to see, pinched precariously between my thumb and forefinger.  
  
"Shikon Shard!" she gasped. I nodded, and pushed it into her hands. She took it with wonder on her face, then looked back up at mine. "Who ARE you?"  
  
"As I said, my name is Aslin, and, somewhere deep inside of me, I am part Youkai."  
  
"Hanyou?!"  
  
"Not quite," I shook my head, "not half-Youkai. Less than that. My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was an Inu-Hanyou. He mated with a Miko, and their son married the daughter of a great warrior woman, and a man tainted with Youkai blood curse. Their daughter mated with a full-blooded Kitsune-Youkai, and they had a girl child as well. Do you follow me?"  
  
Kagome shook her head... then nodded slowly. She was chewing slightly on her bottom lip.  
  
"That made my great-great-great-grandmother a Hanyou, with more Youkai blood than Ningen. Slowly, through the generations, the Youkai blood thinned, until me. I am more Ningen than Youkai."  
  
"Your eyes shimmer like a Youkai's," she said slowly, choked up.   
  
"Hai, they do."   
  
She clutched the Shikon Shard against her breast, and I could see the faint outline of the half-completed Shikon No Tama pressing back through the fabric of her shirt. "Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"That Shikon Shard has been passed down from generation to generation, from the body of mother to daughter. It was placed inside the womb of the warrior woman who is my ancestor to negate the curse that the father carried and would have been passed onto the child. Every girl-child born tho this line inherits the Shikon Shard, and passes it on to her daughter. But, Kagome Higurashi," he eyes widened again and I paused for a small chuckle, "Yes, I know your name. But... it is time that the Shikon Shard went back to where it was supposed to go."  
  
"To me?" Kagome's hands spasmed over the crystal shard, and I knew that she was afraid I would take it away from her.  
  
"No," I said softly, turning and walking away a few steps. Then I stopped and look back over my shoulder. "To my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Keep it safe, Miko-sama, and give it to Sango-sama when you get back."  
  
Then I began walking, wanting to turn and look at the shock that must be dancing across Kagome's features, but refrained. I didn't want to stop to chat. I didn't want to accidentally change my past by revealing too much more. I knew that this, for the sake not messing up history, was the one and only time I could see Kagome, and I had to be quick and efficient.  
  
And dramatic.  
  
But who doesn't enjoy dramatic exits?  
  
"Ch-hotto! Matte!" I heard Kagome cry out, but I merely pried my right hand from my pants pocket and waved. The motion caused my sleeve to slip down, the soft fabric pooling at my crooked elbow. The cool autumn air stung the tender and raw tissue, and I knew that she could see the blackened and scarred flesh that traced the appendage. "Your arm...! Matte! I remember you! You were in Kouga's den that first time...! Matte yo!"  
  
Ducking around a corner, my face all smiles, I ran all the way back to my great-grandmother's house, where my date for the evening was waiting for me.  
  
The wind in my hair was fresh.  
  
~OWARI~  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note:  
  
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and hung on until the end. I hope it all makes sence now! Feedback, even though the story is finished, is GREATLY appreciated!  
  
--vega 


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